Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light
by procrastin8or951
Summary: Sirius waits for salvation from the things that haunt him. Death. His family. Anorexia. But "salvation" is just another way of saying "happily ever after." This isn't a fairy tale. Happy endings don't exist. Sequel to Secrets Are Walls That Keep Us Alone.
1. Prologue

**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Prologue**

Sirius Black found only bits and pieces of the night lurking in the shadows of his memory. He built understanding of events from fragments – unintentional edge pieces to his puzzle, his new life.

_The Whomping Willow creaked when it froze, the same sound it made the first time he found its secret and for a moment he forgot he wasn't still thirteen. _

_ Padfoot felt dust nest in his fur as he bared his teeth to keep a boy afraid. The dust stained him grey, old as the ages, and minutes went by before he remembered murder wasn't in his plan. _

_ A little grey man huddled on the beaten floorboards, cowering in shabby robes. Padfoot yearned to lunge for the throat; Sirius snarled and settled for a wand. _

_ The son of James requested a life. Or, rather, two. Wormtail's and his own. Don't kill Wormtail, rescue himself from the Dementors. A fair trade. _

_ The whisper-rush of moving clouds and the sting of stark moonlight. Sirius leapt and Padfoot landed, facing off with the wolf. _

_ Summer drained from the air, only dregs of insect sounds remaining, soon to be quashed by his own screams. The only thing louder was the breath of oppression – of Dementors. _

_ Caged in a soft chair in a warm office, but the chill still resided in his chest. He lost his heart long ago. _

_ He traced constellations on the sleek hippogriff feathers, mapping his way as the dark-silk wind dried his spilt blood. _

Sirius toppled unceremoniously off the hippogriff the moment it landed, lying dizzily on the ground. He whispered an unaddressed 'thank you' for the ground being warm. He listened to himself breathe, listened to the rustle of ragged robes over dirt.

There was too much to think about, too much to understand now. His mind was weary, his body tired and sore. He only knew two things. First, he was free of Azkaban. Not a new development by any means, but it felt new after twelve years of the same four walls, the same set of bars. He relished every moment he could live in the present. And yet the second thing he knew: that he was captive to the duties of a fugitive. Namely, don't get caught. Stay on the move, stay out of sight.

He would need a place to stay. But for now he should probably move from this clearing. As much as he enjoyed seeing the sky, lying on the ground in a clearing was not conducive to remaining hidden. For that matter, Buckbeak would probably not choose to keep standing over him forever.

With more effort than Sirius would care to admit, he dragged himself to his feet and clumsily led Buckbeak to the edge of the woods, wondering for a moment where Buckbeak had taken him, then wondering if he was still losing blood from the fight with the wolf. He was still horribly dizzy.

Once Buckbeak's rope was securely tied to a tree, Sirius half-collapsed onto the ground again. It was cooler here under the trees, and he shivered. He curled up, huddling deeper into his thin robes. He wished he had a wand to make a fire, to heal the cuts, to mend his robes. His wand had been snapped when he was sent to Azkaban; the wand he confiscated from Wormtail had been taken by Fudge.

_Well, if nothing else, I'm still free_, he thought, and then let out a small, bitter laugh. Only if freedom meant running from humanity, being trapped out in the rain, starving all the time. The only thing Sirius Black was free of was freedom.

* * *

><p>He awoke to darkness, black night shrouding his vision. It was so incredibly cold he wondered if he hadn't slept right through summer and fall, into the dead of winter. He consoled himself with the lack of snow.<p>

Sirius tentatively stood up, steadying himself against a tree. Glancing around, he took in the woods, listening for any hint of a sound that could indicate water. He dropped to all fours as Padfoot, sniffing the wind lightly for any hint of that faint sweet smell. Nothing.

He survived most of the last year as Padfoot. Hidden in the night, he prowled on paws calloused by the miles, curling into himself against the harsh cold of winter. He snuck into basements and allies, anything to escape the biting wind. Eating out of trash bins – the rank smell appealed to Padfoot but turned Sirius' stomach. Keeping up with news when he could find the occasional newspaper. Living so long as a dog that he was reduced to the barest of emotions and thoughts, loose fibers of being without cohesion. He knew he couldn't do it forever.

Sirius needed a place to live. A safe place, somewhere to lay low. If nothing else, it was necessary because of Harry. The boy looked so much like James, with that same reckless loyalty that made James both frustrating and admirable. And that reckless loyalty was the same thing that would cause Sirius to make sure he was there for his godson – no matter what it took, he couldn't let James down.

He clambered onto Buckbeak clumsily, limbs numb and out of practice. Buckbeak shuffled, stretched his wings and suddenly took off, Sirius' arms wrapped tightly about his neck, face buried in the feathers, relishing contact.

"I think we both know where to go, right Buckbeak?" he whispered.

* * *

><p>Remus spun neatly into the cold ashes in his abandoned house. Stepping from the fireplace, he shifted the load he carried to a nearby chair and walked to the kitchen, waving his wand as he walked. Sparks into flames and the room was dimly lit once more, though the cobwebbed corners remained encased in darkness.<p>

The house showed all the signs of a year's vacancy. A fine layer of grit covered every surface and a permanent chill hung in the air. He ignored it for the time being and started a kettle of water for some tea.

After a year at Hogwarts, the silence of his own home prickled his skin. There was a soft edge to every sound, a hush that seemed to fall even as he did his best to be noisy, just to prove his existence. But before the silence had a chance to press him into anonymity once again, there was the gentlest hint of a tap at his back door.

Sirius Black, looking even more tattered in the waning daylight, leaned against the doorframe in a feeble imitation of his former arrogance. He tried for a self-confident grin but too late remembered the state of his teeth and reigned it in to a bemused smirk.

"Come on in, Sirius," Remus sighed. Though he knew his old friend was attempting to lighten the mood, all he could see in that face was the years that had passed, the beatings they'd both endured, the distance between who they thought they would be and who they had become.

* * *

><p>Sirius cupped his hands around the hot mug, watching the blue tinge seep from his fingers.<p>

"It wouldn't be permanent or anything. And of course I'd chip in for food and all."

"Don't worry about it," Remus murmured as he divvied up the meager portion of food he had acquired at Hogwarts to sustain himself until a trip to the store tomorrow. "As long as you need."

"Just a week or two," Sirius insisted. "I know…I know things aren't the way they used to be, and I don't want to impose. I just need to find another place to go and I'll be gone. If not…I'll work something out."

"You aren't going back to living on the streets as a stray dog. You'll stay here as long as you need to, Pads."

Sirius peered up through his long, tangled hair. "You sure?"

"You're my friend. I'm sure." Remus leveled him with a long look. "You're still my best friend."

Sirius nodded and looked down into his tea. He felt he should say that Remus was his too, but then he also felt that that was childish. He assumed it was understood.

He had been in prison his entire adult life. He knew how to be an adult, he knew he was one. But his instincts for relating to others had not grown in the last twelve years. He did not know these people anymore. Though he believed the core of who someone was had to remain the same, who knew how Remus spent his time, or how he had dealt with the death of all his friends?

Remus gently pushed a plate of food into Sirius' line of sight. Sirius glanced up again, and after Remus took a bite of his own food, Sirius began to eat ravenously.

"Slow down," Remus warned. Just as he had always admonished James. _No one is going to take it away from you_. In Azkaban, they did.

Sirius forced himself to stop, take a sip of tea. Four deep breaths. He ate two more bites and abruptly realize he was full. That his stomach ached. That even though he had finished only half the food before him, he could not eat anymore. He watched miserably as Remus finished his own food.

"Do you want…?" Sirius trailed off, nodding at his remaining food.

"I'm alright. You sure you don't want any more?"

"I…I can't. I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I thought this might happen." Remus cleared the plates and stowed the leftover food. "You'll probably have to work up to full meals again, since you've been –" He stopped abruptly.

"Starving." Sirius supplied. Remus winced, and Sirius could see the flash of memory in his eyes, of protruding ribs and paper skin. Some things were still hard.

"You probably want to get cleaned up," Remus said, interrupting the torrent of thoughts that had flooded Sirius' mind. He led Sirius to the bathroom, handed him a spare set of pajamas, a toothbrush, a towel. "I'll let you have the bed."

"No," Sirius shook his head, vehement. "I'll take the couch."

"It's really fine –"

"I don't need a bed," Sirius insisted. "After everything…anything would be comfortable to me. Really. I'll take the couch."

Sirius took a long shower, until the water ran clean and clear, until he could stand the texture of his hair once more. He took even longer scrutinizing himself in the mirror. The body wasted by prison and by the years before that too. The scars and the bones and the wounds that just won't heal.

He borrowed a comb, worked through his hair until it fell smoothly, then borrowed some scissors and trimmed it to just below his shoulders where it always used to be. He asked Remus for a wand, and he fixed his teeth, brushed them, rinsed.

Sirius curled up on the couch with the blanket and pillow Remus left for him. Drew his legs up to his chest as he used to as a child, rested his chin on his knee and watched each tear land in his hair. For all that was gained and lost in a day, for all that was lost in twelve years. For everything he used to be and was not anymore. For all the things he should have been and would never be.

When Remus woke up in the morning and padded quietly through the house, he would find, not Sirius, but Padfoot, curled on the floor, tail covering his nose, tracks of tears still glistening in his fur.


	2. Chapter 1

**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter One**

_One Year Later_

"Merlin's beard, Sirius!" Remus scowled as he dragged his friend through the back door and into the house. "Are you trying to die?"

"What?" Sirius shrugged as though he didn't know what Remus was referring to.

"Living out in the wilderness for a year? Being out of contact with your only friends for months? And you look like you haven't eaten in months!" Sirius was shoved none-too-gently into a kitchen chair as Remus slammed a pan onto the stove and began to cook.

"Missed you too, Moony," Sirius muttered sullenly. "You know, I'm just as much an adult as you. I can take care of myself."

"You can, when you aren't too busy trying to take care of everyone else to even notice that you have needs too."

Sirius sighed and slouched down in his chair, sulking. Remus slid a bowl of soup in front of him and sat down with his own.

"I did miss you, you know," Remus said casually. "I was worried."

"Sorry." Sirius took a cautious sip. "So when did you get to be a decent cook?"

"I've always been a decent cook. You're the one who will always be hopeless in a kitchen."

Sirius nodded, then made a decision. It was time to get down to business. "What's going on with the Order?"

"Well…" Remus hesitated. "I'm not sure."

"What do you mean, you aren't sure? You and I were supposed to be getting in touch with everyone, figuring things out."

"I've talked to everyone. Everyone left, anyway. And a few extras. Everyone is prepared. Several people are going to be able to get us intelligence about the Ministry. Kingsley and Dawlish, particularly."

"So what's the problem?"

"Well, for one thing…we need a headquarters." Remus sighed. "I would offer to have it here, but my location is registered and all." Sirius knew that wasn't the real reason. No one ever came to check on them. He should know. He had stayed for a couple weeks last summer, with the intention of pretending to be Remus' dog if necessary, but it never had been. Despite all the laws about so-called "half-breeds," Remus was not kept on much of a leash at all. The problem was that Remus could barely provide for himself on the odd jobs he could acquire. His house was tiny. He couldn't maintain all the things necessary for a headquarters, such as the constant vigilance they all knew Mad-Eye would insist upon. Any security spells would be noticed by the Ministry.

Sirius frowned. "Dumbledore didn't have any suggestions?"

"One." Remus paused, then looked down at his empty bowl.

"Well?"

"Your house."

"You mean…Grimmauld Place?" Sirius dropped his spoon back into his half-full bowl and stood up. He started to pace.

"Yes. We didn't think you would go for it. And we haven't been able to reach you. But Dumbledore checked into everything. The property is yours. All the old enchantments are still in effect. No one but you can get in." Remus looked at Sirius anxiously.

Sirius stopped, chewed at the corner of his mouth. His mind whirred through the memories, the logic, the realization. "There's no other way."

It wasn't a question. But Remus answered. "Not that we can see."

Sirius steeled himself, sighed. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"I'll do it." He walked out, leaving a stunned Remus in his wake.

* * *

><p>Remus gave him some time, but when the sky began to darken with clouds, he set out to look for Sirius.<p>

Predictably, Sirius was with Buckbeak, just under the cover of the trees. Remus heard him whispering something as he stroked Buckbeak's sleek head over and over again, almost absently.

"Padfoot?" Sirius jumped at the sound of his nickname, then scowled at having been surprised.

Remus bowed to Buckbeak, who kneeled in return, before approaching Sirius. "You okay?"

Sirius nodded glumly. "Did you tell Dumbledore yet?"

"Flooed over there a while ago, yeah."

"Guess that's it then."

"Sirius…is the idea of going back to that house that horrible? It's just a house."

"Wait til you see it," Sirius said bitterly. "Just wait."

* * *

><p>Sirius stood on the front stoop, Remus at his side. They had apparated, rather than flooing, just in case anything was amiss within the house. Sirius sighed heavily, pointing the wand Remus had bought for him at the lock.<p>

The door moaned on its hinges, decades of dust shifting through the air as they stepped inside. Sirius tread lightly on the soft carpets, wand poised and ready. He felt the house lean in to listen, every board straining faintly as it sensed his presence.

The eyes of the portraits slanted and vanished into the shadows, only the faintest whisperings audible, traveling like a soft gasp down the hallway until the terrible scream.

The words faded out as the house came back to life in his mind – his mother's cold presents and the hint of his father's wrath that pervaded even when Orion was not home. He could almost see himself as a teenager, apparently reading but ears attuned for the accusations he knew would come. And Regulus, across the hall, sealing Slytherin posters and dark magic over his dreams.

"Sirius!"

A washed out set of curtains had been wrenched shut over the portrait and the halls were fearfully silent again, the only remaining echoes of "mudbloods, traitors, filth" in Sirius own ears.

"I'm fine." He took a breath and walked further into the house, ignoring the pangs of the past.


	3. Chapter 2

**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter Two**

The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Stripped down to the bare bones, and it should simply be a house. Yet the more Remus and Sirius stripped, the more it was clear that something else existed here.

Below the layers of dust and grime, the worn layer of disuse, the sporadic infestations, there was still…something. Something that made this house, in Sirius' opinion, evil.

He could tell Remus thought he was crazy. What house could not be cleaned? If not of memories, at least of everything else? But Sirius knew better. The very foundation of this house bore the scars of dark magic.

These scars, the type that felt like ground glass in his joints, aching increasingly every day, these scars were the ones that set all his previous scars aflame. The first night, when he lay down in his old bed, listening to the still-familiar sighs of the noble and most ancient ancestors, he could feel it all over again. The abuse. The neglect. The fear.

He didn't sleep. He cleaned the kitchen. Top to bottom.

_Elbow grease. No magic. Scrub harder. What would your father say?_ Scrubbing the floor until his knees were black with bruises, until his muscles quaked with exhaustion. Until his stomach contracted hard on the empty space and that familiar wave of dizziness swept him from his pain to that transcendent state.

This time, he ate exactly four bites of an apple to remind himself that now was not then, and then he scrubbed until his body ached.

* * *

><p>"How's Harry doing?" Remus stood at the stove, idly stirring soup on the stove.<p>

"He's okay. Pretty frustrated that no one will tell him what's going on."

"We'll be able to fill him in soon," Remus promised, noting Sirius' own frustration.

"I know. It's just, the fact that he's so vital to everything we are doing, that he is the one who had to fight Voldemort, yet he's the one we're leaving out? It's wrong." Sirius crumpled up his fourth attempt at a letter to Harry and threw it at the cold fireplace. "He shouldn't have to go through this alone. Cedric's death is hard on him."

"He'll be here in just a few weeks." Remus set a full bowl of soup in front of Sirius, and sat down with his own. Sirius mumbled a thanks and slowly stirred it without taking a bite.

"Do you ever wonder…if Dumbledore really knows what he's doing?"

"No."

"Not at all?"

"I think Dumbledore has the best plan. If anything will work, it'll be through him."

Sirius chewed his lip and was silent.

"C'mon, Sirius, we've got to believe in something."

"Yeah." Sirius trailed his spoon through the liquid.

"Molly is going to force feed you when she gets here tomorrow. You know that, right?" Remus gave Sirius a scrutinizing look.

"I've been eating. I just…"

"I know. Azkaban, and a year in the wilderness. I understand. But, Pads, I haven't seen you look like this since…" he trailed off. Sirius filled in mentally: since they were sixteen and he was on the verge of death. Since he relapsed at twenty.

Sirius cringed unwillingly. He knew. He knew that from now on, he would always be suspect. That no matter how hard he tried, the first meal he skipped, alarms would sound. That even though his stomach had shrunken the point that he could barely manage a third of what anyone else could eat, his best attempt would still be labeled anorexic.

Frustrated and determined to prove himself, Sirius gulped down more than half the bowl of soup as quickly as he could, until he knew he couldn't eat anymore. He looked pleadingly at Remus, who nodded his approval.

They spent the rest of the day cleaning out the bedrooms, though the best they could do was to remove most of the dust. Though the rooms were, technically, clean, they still held that air of disrepair, the dimness of the rest of the Black house.

Shortly before dinner, Remus announced that he had to leave, that there was soup leftover for Sirius to heat up, that he'd be there in the morning to help everyone move in. He stepped into the fireplace, and spun into disappearance.

Sirius looked at the soup on the stove, then walked upstairs to the living room door. The doors were on rollers, able to slide open and closed. He slid the door open just an inch and peered in.

The room still resounded with memories. On the carpet, he could still almost see the shape of his own frail body where it had fallen so many times. The slight fracture along the leg of a chair, where he had crashed into it once. Though his mother had fixed it, the line of it still remained, just as a subtle reminder. The faint glow of dark spells from his mother's wand glancing off the walls. Sirius slid the door shut. Someone else would have to clean that room.

Upstairs, the plaque on the door still read his name. Despite all he had expected, though his name, he was certain, was no longer on the family tree, his room remained intact. Possibly due the permanent sticking charms, but regardless, all his Gryffindor banners, pictures, pinups of muggle girls.

He stripped his old robes over his head, kicked off his shoes, and flopped over on the bed. Rolling over to face the wall, he came face to face with what used to be his favorite picture. The four Marauders, out by the lake at Hogwarts on a June day, arms about each other's shoulders.

Sirius stared at the photo. At the less-scarred, livelier Remus, whose smile did not yet have to work to erase frown lines. At a Peter Pettigrew so far from the shabby grey traitor he had seen a year ago that he wasn't even recognizable. At Sirius himself, young and almost happy, though still noticeably thinner than the others. And finally at James, the glint of the stolen snitch in his hand matching the twinkle of mischief in his eye as he and Sirius shared a long, amused look. If Sirius recalled, they had thrown Peter in the lake very shortly after Lily had snapped this picture.

It was as though they were inseparable, as though he was unable to see where one stopped and the next began. Yet, if he looked closely, he could see the fault lines, much like that fracture in the chair's legs, left not as a reminder, but a warning, of what was to come.

One dead. One a traitor. One a fugitive and a traitor of a different sort. One aged beyond his years.

Sirius tugged the photo off the wall, slipped it under his mattress and prayed to forget what would never be.


	4. Chapter 3

**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter Three**

They all came, one after the other, with trunks and owls and backpacks and suitcases, piling into the kitchen. Seven people he scarcely knew, but with whom he would be sharing a house for the foreseeable future.

Molly immediately pulled him into a tight hug, making a disapproving noise as he felt his bones grind together.

Sirius quickly straightened his robes, feeling out of place. They were all dressed in muggle clothes, but the only clothes he had were old T-shirts from his Hogwarts days, and he no matter how small his frame, he was no longer young enough to wear them.

"Let's get you all settled in," he offered, waving his wand to levitate Hermione's trunk as Arthur and Molly assisted with Ron and Ginny's things.

He led them up from the basement, hushing them at the sight of the elf heads and troll leg. He led them up one flight of stairs and showed them the room that would belong to Ron and Harry, and the identical one across the hall. Then, on the floor above, the room he gave to Hermione and Ginny, and the one across from it for Arthur and Molly.

"I would give you that master bedroom, but…"

"No, it should be yours, of course!" Arthur insisted, smiling.

"Ah, no. I'm sleeping in my old room, down a floor." He grinned apologetically. "Uh, Buckbeak seems to think he's earned the largest room and let's just say, I don't like to argue with him."

Ron and Hermione grinned. "So he's alright then?" Hermione asked.

"He's right down there, through that door, if you want to see him," Sirius offered, smiling at her. "Oh, and, there's a bag of…food for him in the dresser outside the door, if you really want him to like you."

Hermione grabbed Ron and Ginny and dragged them towards the door, while Ron muttered something about Hermione's obsession with animal rights and spew.

"Thank you, Sirius, for opening your home to us," Molly began. "What with things as they are…" she trailed off, casting a meaningful look at the twins, who leaned in to hear.

"Not a problem," Sirius replied. "Make yourselves at home…or as much as you can. Remus and I have been working to clean up, but it's quite the job. I'm sorry about the…well, all of it." He frowned down the stairs to where the last elf's ear was just visible.

"We'll have this place up and running in no time," Molly promised, patting his arm. "Don't you worry." And with that, she bustled off towards the kitchen.

"Oh, she's already taking to your kitchen," Arthur said, looking after her. "You shouldn't have worried about her feeling at home."

"She's welcome to it," Sirius mumbled. "I can't cook at all."

It wasn't long before Molly was calling them all down to lunch, thick sandwiches displayed on the table, chips on the side, as well as soup on the stove. Everyone crowded around the table, filling their plates and eating happily. Fred and George told jokes and did charms to entertain Ginny as Molly screeched at them for the misuse of magic, while Hermione scolded Ron for eating "like an animal." At the end of the table, Sirius took a sandwich, carefully cut it exactly in half, removed two-thirds of the contents, and began to eat slowly. Arthur questioned him about the contents of the house, in particular the muggle artifacts that were charmed beyond all recognition and probably highly harmful.

"A lot of jewelry in the drawing room cabinet," Sirius began. "And most of it is cursed somehow. I've never taken too close a look, but I remember my cousin once tried on a bracelet that turned her whole arm black. Started smoking and everything. We put her right eventually, but ever since, I've kept my distance."

"Well, of course, you would have to!" Arthur said, appalled. "We'll have to be careful with those when we remove them. Mustn't allow them to leave still cursed, but we can't let the ministry in on it…"

"I don't reckon there's a whole lot to deal with," Sirius assured him. "The Blacks never did like any association with muggles."

Arthur sighed and shook his head. "It really is too bad."

Sirius laughed mirthlessly. "Nah. Muggles ought to count themselves lucky not to know the Blacks."

When everyone was through eating, Sirius helped Molly clean up, amid her protests that he'd hardly eaten. "Would you like me to make you something else? Are you sick?"

"I'm fine," he insisted, smiling. "Lunch was wonderful. I just had a large breakfast."

She nodded, mollified. "We'd better begin readying for the rest of the Order, seeing as they'll be here tonight."

It turned out that getting ready for the rest of the Order mostly involved cooking enormous amounts of food. Molly gave Sirius a recipe and set him to work on some sort of stew, but when it became clear that his cooking abilities ended with boiling water, he was instead relegated to the sidelines.

"I was very good at Potions, you know," Sirius muttered defensively. "I can follow instructions."

"That's quite all right, dear," Molly said. "Chop these, would you?"

Sirius waved his wand and a knife animatedly began to finely cut the onions as he stood far enough away to keep his eyes from watering.

"And I've never had much chance to learn," Sirius continued. "Seeing as…well." He stopped. Perhaps Molly did not want to be reminded that her family was living with a supposed murderer.

Molly smiled at him once again, patting his shoulder. "We'll get you sorted out. You'll be able to cook in no time."

After a while of preparation, everything was left to simmer, and Molly ventured upstairs, Sirius hovering behind her, to see the state of the rest of the house. They found Arthur on the stairs, leaning close to examine one of the more hairy elf heads with a mixture of revulsion and intrigue.

"The portraits and the, uh, the heads seem to be attached with a Permanent Sticking Charm," Sirius said apologetically.

"Odd sense of humor, hm?" Sirius spun around to see Remus on the landing, apparently having just come from the fireplace in the kitchen.

"I doubt humor had much to do with it," Sirius said faintly. "Merlin's beard, Rem, give me a heart attack."

"You ought to get used to that," Remus advised. "People are going to be in and out of here as long as its headquarters."

"I'd think some of them would be polite enough not to sneak up on a fellow," Sirius grumbled pointedly.

A small explosion sounded from upstairs and both Remus and Sirius jumped and peered upwards.

"Fred and George," Arthur said vacantly, still peering at the elf's head.

Molly sighed. "We call it the Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. They…they're a handful, at times."

"Like all the time." Arthur grinned. "Now about these…"

"Like Sirius said, we haven't been able to get them down," Remus said.

"No, not that. Why would heads be used as decoration?"

"I'm not quite sure, but apparently it's a big honor to have your head put up there, if you're an elf," Sirius said. "At least, so Kreacher mutters."

"Kreacher?"

"Oh. Kreacher!" Sirius called. With a small _pop_, the grubby little house elf appeared on the stair in front of him.

"Master," Kreacher grated out, voice dusty with lack of use.

"This is Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. They're living here now, with their children."

"Filthy traitors, muggle-lovers –"

"Shut up, Kreacher!" Kreacher fell silent but continued to glare reproachfully at the offended Weasleys.

"He's…he's been listening to my mother's portrait too much over the years. Please, don't…" Sirius paused. "Just ignore him. That's what I do."

The Weasleys nodded, but Molly still seemed a bit miffed.

"Maybe we should tell everyone just to stay in the kitchen, for tonight," Remus suggested, casting a sidelong glance at Kreacher and the other elves. The portrait. The Weasleys uncomfortable looks at the ominous house.

Sirius nodded silently, eyes downcast, wishing for all the world that he was not associated with any of this, that he could claim none of this was his fault or his responsibility. But he knew, as he always had, that he would always have the stain of darkness, as long as his name was still Black.


	5. Chapter 4

**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter Four**

"All right, let' s get to it. We don't have all night." Mad-Eye's low rough voice cut through the conversation. The rest of the Order, crowded around the table, slowly fell silent, glancing at each other askance. Though they had all been envisioning this moment, knowing it had to come, there was a dreadful sense of reality to it; they could no longer pretend against the notion that they would once again have to fight. Even Dumbledore, though his beard obscured half his expression, could not hide the sadness in his eyes.

Only a few looked less forlorn. Mad-Eye, who had never halted in his fight looked almost pleased to have others join him. And Snape sat, stony-faced as ever, directly across from Sirius, regarding him coolly.

"The first order of business, of course, should be protecting Harry," Dumbledore stated. "A member of the Order should be keeping watch over him at all times."

The rest of the Order nodded and a murmur of general consensus passed through the group. After a few minutes of shuffling, a schedule had been worked out to relieve those already observing Harry.

"Then we may now turn our attention to thwarting any of Voldemort's current plans." Dumbledore seemed not to notice several people, including the Weasleys, flinch.

"The Dark Lord has already begun working his plans," Snape began, his tone sounding, to Sirius, almost insufferably condescending. "He's looking to acquire something that he believes will give him an edge over the Potter boy that he has not previously achieved."

He paused, then continued on. "A prophecy."

"Ah, the prophecy," Dumbledore repeated, thoughtfully.

"What prophecy?" Sirius broke in abruptly.

Dumbledore peered at him through his half-moon spectacles. "As I'm sure you all know, whenever a prophecy is made, it is stored in the Ministry of Magic, more specifically, in the Department of Mysteries. In this department, there exists a prophecy regarding Harry and Voldemort."

"And what does You-Know-Who want with it?" Molly asked.

"It is truly astonishing that he has not sought it before now," Dumbledore mused. "Presumably, a prophecy regarding the two of them would perhaps contain some information that Voldemort could use to influence the final outcome of this battle."

"So, we have to assume it does, and keep him from getting it," Remus concluded.

"But we've all seen _The Daily Prophet_," Arthur said. "The Ministry isn't going to let any Order members near the prophecy."

"What we have on our side," Kingsley interjected, "is that the Ministry doesn't know about the prophecy. So any one of us who works in the Ministry can be seen around that department."

"How long do you think it will take them to catch on?" Snape sneered. "If it's to be a constant watch, you'll have to disillusion yourselves."

"That's a given," Arthur said, hastily intervening as Kingsley shot Snape a look.

The meeting continued in such a way. Sirius sat back as they assigned people to watch the Department of Mysteries, as they assigned people to watch Harry, as people volunteered to check into former Death Eaters or on possible leads.

And when everyone had gathered up their materials and left, one by one, either out of the front door or by floo, or simply by walking into the backyard and disapparating, Sirius remained in his chair. He remained there until Arthur and Molly went upstairs, and until Remus was the only one left to cast him sidelong looks.

"I know what you're thinking," Sirius said. "You think I'm sulking. I'm not."

"I didn't think you were."

"So what if I can't do anything useful? At least I can give a house."

"That's not all you do."

"Right."

"I'm not going to try to convince you if you're not even going to listen," Remus grumbled.

Sirius sighed and slumped over the table, head on his arms. "Go ahead."

"If nothing else, and I'm not saying there is nothing else, you're helping Harry. He needs contact and direction right now, and you're the best one to provide it. You can always help Harry."

Sirius looked out from under his hair at Remus. "Yeah."

Remus sighed and stood up. "Want a drink?"

"Now you're talking."

Sirius wasn't entirely sure when Remus started to drink, and after a couple of shots of firewhiskey, he decided Remus had _not_ started to drink- he did not hold his liquor well.

"I don't know how you and James drank this stuff," Remus said, pushing his glass away. "It's foul."

"You're not swallowing fast enough," Sirius advised, knocking back another shot.

"Can't believe this is where we're at," Remus said faintly.

"What, drinking in my kitchen?" Sirius winced as the alcohol burned his throat.

"After an Order meeting, without…" He didn't finish. Sirius looked at Remus and deliberately poured both of them another shot. Remus shook his head, and Sirius drank them both.

"Yeah, well, at least you got a few years of peace. " Sirius lurched to his feet and stumbled to the stairs leading from the kitchen, mind consumed with memories. "Whatever that's worth."

* * *

><p><em>"Another one, mate?" James was already pouring the drink before Sirius could decline. <em>

_ "You're going to be sorry tomorrow," Lily cautioned in slight singsong, looking on in amusement as Harry squirmed in her lap. _

_ "Hell, Lily, we've been working our asses off for the Order, it's about time we got to relax," James said, clinking his glass against Sirius' so enthusiastically that some of the mulled mead in his tankard sloshed into Sirius' tumbler of firewhiskey. Sirius sipped his drink anyway, then set it on the table, standing up unsteadily. _

_ "Where are you going?" James questioningly slurred. _

_ Sirius nodded towards the hallway. "Bathroom." _

_ He took a long time, staring at himself in the mirror. Despite the fact that every time he did this, James asked if he was some kind of girl, Sirius couldn't break himself of the habit. He took in the dark circles under his eyes, the paleness of his skin stretched just a little too tightly over high cheekbones. He splashed cold water on his face, tried to convince himself he was at least sober enough to not crash on the Potters' couch, and left the bathroom. _

_ Upon reentering the room, he found Lily attempting to talk an obnoxiously drunk James into going to bed. _

_ "But Sirius is still here," James insisted. "Pads, old boy, want a drink?" _

_ "No, Prongs," Sirius shook his head, smiling. "It's getting late. We've both got to get up in the morning." _

_ "But Sirius…" James complained. _

_ "Don't whine, James," Lily reprimanded lightly. "Sirius is tired, and so am I."_

_ Lily lightly pushed Sirius' shoulder so that he would sit on the couch, and set Harry in his arms. "Watch him while I take care of James, would you?" Sirius nodded his consent. _

_ He watched as Lily pulled a still belligerent James from the room and up the stairs, then turned his eyes toward Harry. Though the baby was quite sleepy, his green eyes drooping, Harry stared up at Sirius and slowly entangled his sticky fingers in the ebony ends of hair that just tickled his skin. _

_ Sirius smiled sadly at Harry. "You don't even know yet, Harry. You still think everything's wonderful, don't you? But why shouldn't you? You've got the best parents in the world. You're loved." _

_ He sighed. The world outside these walls was terrible, far beyond his own imagination, let alone that of a child who could not conceive of evil. Sirius spent his days trying to think like the Death Eaters, to stay one step ahead, protect those who needed it. Like the rest of his life, though he was on the right side of the battle, he often felt it was the losing side. _

_ "But maybe when you grow up, it won't be in a world like this, eh? Maybe if your dad and I keep working so hard all the time, you won't ever have to know about this." Harry tugged lightly at Sirius' hair and giggled. "Yeah. I hope so too." _

_ Sirius looked up as Lily walked back into the room, passing a hand over her tired eyes. "He's been under a lot of stress," she said. "You both have." _

_ "We all have," Sirius said, the exhaustion creeping into his voice. Harry's warm weight felt too heavy for his arms, and he hugged the baby closer to his chest to ease the strain on his muscles. _

_ "Here, let me," Lily said, reaching out for Harry. Sirius looked down into those startlingly green eyes again. "You take care of mommy and daddy, Harry. Don't let your dad get too full of himself, okay?" Harry made a general agreeing sound and failed to let go of Sirius' hair as Lily picked him up, forcing Sirius to extricate himself. _

_ "Guess I should get going," Sirius said, standing up, and suddenly the room spun. He sank back onto the couch. _

_ Lily frowned at him, humming disapproval. "Sirius…" _

_ "Sorry. Guess I drank more than I thought," he said remorsefully. _

_ "And on an empty stomach too, no doubt." _

_ He didn't bother to deny it. He knew he wasn't fooling them. Lily disappeared for a moment and returned with a glass of water and three slices toast. "Eat." _

_ Sirius nodded and obediently choked down the food. He set the plate back on the coffee table and leaned back. Lily balanced Harry on her hip and used her one free hand to wave her wand, summoning Sirius' blanket and pillow. _

_ "I'll see you in the morning," she said, disappearing up the stairs. _

_ Sirius stretched out on the couch, wrapping himself in the blanket, feeling the food and alcohol roiling in his stomach. He resolved to never drink again._

_At least, not for a while. _


	6. Chapter 5

**Still Fighting to Walk Toward the Light**

**Chapter Five**

Remus rapped lightly on the frame of the open door to Sirius' bedroom, craning his neck to look for his friend around the heaps of rubble scattered about. "Pads?"

Sirius stuck his head out of the closet. "Hey, you think Harry or Ron would want any of these?" He waved a couple of old muggle shirts through the dusty air.

"Probably not long enough for Ron," Remus said. "But I bet Harry'd like them."

Sirius nodded thoughtfully, then tossed them at Remus. "Hold on to them, then."

"Anything in particular prompt this…spring cleaning?"

"It's summer." Sirius hung a few sets of robes in the otherwise empty closet, then closed the door. "I don't know. It's not like I'm going to have new stuff to store."

"You never know." Remus sat lightly on the edge of Sirius' bed, then sprang up as a cloud of dust arose. "Please tell me you haven't been sleeping on that."

Sirius looked at him reproachfully. "Where the hell else would I sleep, eh? A little dust never hurt anybody."

"God only knows how long it's been since you cleaned anything in here properly," Remus grumbled, dropping the shirts on the desk and balling up the sheets on the bed. "Your mattress is stained."

Sirius followed Remus' gaze to the browned splotches. He looked away. "Yeah."

"Ought to flip the mattress, at least."

"Other side's worse." Remus stared at Sirius' back, wondering, then looked away, telling himself it was all in the past. He tossed the sheets out into the hall to take them downstairs later.

They spent the afternoon organizing Sirius' books and making plans to give away some of his old clothes and to box up the ones that would not fit any of the Weasleys. They tinkered with old artifacts of their youth, from the paper crane that still feebly fluttered its wings flightlessly to one of the elaborate maps drawn in James' hand all in a ploy to win Lily's heart to a doodle of a hippogriff-manticore-bat creature that didn't seem to have a head.

* * *

><p>It was like having a real mother.<p>

Except his real mother was long since dead and buried and this woman was nothing like her.

Walburga Black stood tall and intimidating. The translucent white skin Sirius had inherited, the painted blood-red lips, dark eyes and silky black hair. He had inherited her bone structure – small and rail-thin, hollow-boned. Her skin, in the few instances he'd ever touched it, had been cold as ice – not unlike his own. Her husky, quiet voice permeated a room, cutting through any other noise, exhaling deadly poison.

And nothing she did was anything like what a mother should have been.

In contrast, Molly Weasley did enough mothering, almost, to make up for the years past. Molly was fussy about everything to do with her "children" – a category that seemed to include those that were biologically hers, as well as any other underage people in the vicinity. Anyone with red hair, anyone who was male, anyone who did not know how to cook or sew a button or who did not routinely comb their hair neatly enough.

Molly had taken over responsibility for Sirius, despite his insistence that he was quite all right and he was thirty-six for god's sake. She still invaded his room to clean the mattress, while Sirius shot Remus a look and waved his wand threateningly. As he went to wash his sheets, she took them right out of his hands and shooed him away. She took gold out of his account and bought him new shirts and jumpers and jeans because he "couldn't very well go around looking like that, now could you?" Sirius opened his mouth to point out that he didn't exactly go around anywhere but the house, but as Ron elbowed Sirius in the ribs, he shut up.

She noticed his difficulty with large meals and began preparing many smaller ones for him throughout the day. He found it all a bit more manageable and after only a month he could almost begin to see the man he had been before Azkaban.

The problem with all of this was, Sirius simply did not know how to be a son. He helped clean up after dinner and spent the day cleaning other rooms. He made polite conversation, complimented her cooking, thanked her profusely. And she would smile, pat his shoulder and say "you're welcome, dear." But it never felt like enough.

* * *

><p>"Do you think he saw <em>The Prophet<em> today?"

"Of course, Ron! Harry wouldn't be sitting there uninformed all summer." Hermione scowled into the paper at Rita Skeeter's latest article on their friend.

"What a load of bollocks," Ron muttered. "If you ask me, Fudge is the one who's gone looney. Head's so far up his arse it's no wonder he's lost his mind."

Hermione made a disgusted noise. "Honestly, Ron, do you have to be so crude?"

"What, already practicing for being a prefect? Gonna take five points from Gryffindor for my foul language?" Ron stood up and kicked at the worn floorboards.

Hermione rolled her eyes and did not respond.

There was a knock at the door, and Sirius came strolling in. "I was wondering if you would do me a favor." He held out a leash.

* * *

><p>Hermione gripped the leather handle of the leash tightly. Despite his true identity as a human, Sirius was remarkably adept at playing a dog, and a rather rambunctious one at that. He lunged forward to smell things and people, ran around in circles, and generally acted as though he had never been on a leash before – which, really, he probably hadn't.<p>

Sirius seemed to have a general idea of where he wanted to go, so Hermione allowed him to lead the way, allowing her mind to wander. They came upon a park, where, upon much nudging of her hand with his cold, wet nose, Sirius persuaded Hermione to unleash him.

He bounded back and forth, rolled in the grass, stretched up against a tree.

"Must be awful not to ever go outside," Ron said quietly. "Stuck in that gloomy old house all day, with nothing to think about except You-Know-Who."

Hermione nodded mutely, the image of the elf heads rising, unbidden, to her mind. "Though, it's not like everyone isn't thinking about him, no matter where they are."

"I wish we could tell Harry what's been going on."

"But, Ron, we mustn't! Dumbledore said –"

"I know what Dumbledore said," Ron snapped. Hermione recoiled slightly, then turned and fixed her eyes forcibly on Sirius, where he lounged in the sun. Out of the corner of her eye she noted a small spray of broken grass as Ron kicked at the ground, and felt the corner of her mouth twitch as she recognized his unspoken apology. "It's just…he's deserves to know more than we do. And he's probably going crazy being left out of the loop."

"I know," Hermione said. "But he's coming soon." And then it wouldn't just be the two of them. It wouldn't go from argument to awkwardness to affection and back so fast it left her reeling. She could go back to being huffy and frustrated with Ron, and she could go back to confiding in Harry, though goodness knew he had enough on his plate.

"Yeah, I reckon so," Ron said, interrupting her thoughts. He stared out across the sun-scorched grass. "Reckon Sirius came here as a kid?"

"He seemed to know his way here well enough," Hermione mused. "But then again, this doesn't quite seem like a Black family pastime."

Ron snorted derisively. "The Blacks probably spent all their time trying to secure the fortress," he said. "That house is harder to find than a pleasant Malfoy." Hermione smiled in spite of herself.

"Oh, hold still, you've got…" Ron trailed off as he gently caught a piece of her hair and detached a wisp of dry grass from a curl, holding it up to her, before dusting it from his hands.

She bit the inside of her cheek, trying to hold back that little leap of her heart and the smile that almost met her lips.

Ron cleared his throat. "We, ah, we'd better head back. Dinner soon. Mum'll kill us if we're late."

They called for "Snuffles" and when he came, they patted him on the head like the good dog he supposedly was, and Hermione reattached his leash. Sirius stared up at them, dopey grin on his face, tongue hanging out, and drooled a bit on Ron's jeans before taking off with gleeful mirth, Hermione in tow, as Ron cursed and chased after them.


	7. Chapter 6

**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter Six**

"Harry's in trouble."

Sirius froze in the middle of straightening his clothes, shock registering.

"What kind of trouble? What happened?" Ron demanded, just as Hermione asked "Is he okay?" Sirius glanced around at the portraits, the peering and prying eyes, and gently herded both teens as well as Remus toward the kitchen stairs.

"He's okay, but matters have been complicated. He was attacked by dementors this afternoon, and the Ministry's got him on charges of underage magic in the presence of a muggle," Remus explained as he and took a seat at the table.

"But underage magic is allowed in the case of self-defense!" Hermione said, sinking into a chair across from him. "Those charges couldn't possibly hold up at a trial."

"Unless," Sirius said darkly, realizing the point immediately. "Unless the Ministry denies there were any dementors there at all."

"But how could they?" Ron asked. He was bustling about making tea.

"Muggles can't see dementors," Remus offered. "Which means it's Harry's word against the Ministry's. And we've all seen _The Daily Prophet_."

"Has he been expelled?" Hermione asked fearfully.

"For the time being, no," Remus said. "He'll have to stand trial."

"But he's all right," Sirius said. He waved away Ron's offer of tea. "He's not hurt."

"He's fine. He's still with his aunt and uncle. We managed to contact him and tell him to stay put. The safety charms are still in place, as is the watch."

"And who the hell was supposed to be watching him when all this happened?" Sirius growled, eyes flashing. His hand twitched toward his wand.

"Who else?" Remus said. "Mundungus."

Sirius turned away, furious. It should have been obvious that Mundungus Fletcher was not responsible enough to trust with this. If he'd only been paying more attention in the last Order meeting, he could've done something to stop this…

"They're at the house now, extracting Harry. He'll be here tonight."

* * *

><p>It wasn't until the next day that Sirius and Harry had a chance to really talk. Amidst all the other goings-on, Harry and Sirius snuck off to Buckbeak's room, where Harry bowed politely and then ran his hands over Buckbeak's sleek feathers.<p>

Sirius sat on Buckbeak's bed, silent for a long moment. He cleared his throat. "How are you, Harry?"

Harry shook his head, mouth set in a hard line. And Sirius remembers the same face twenty years ago.

_James' teeth clench, mouth forms a line, eyes determined, and the words draw out. _

_ "I hate you," he rumbles, and Sirius falls. "I never took you for a traitor."_

He looked down. "You have every right to be angry. I would be, too."

"Do you know what it's like to sit back and not know what's going on? Knowing Voldemort's out there and wondering if anything's being done about it?"

"We thought it was best if you stayed where you were," Sirius said.

"That turned out really well, didn't it?" Harry spat. Sirius met his eyes, and Harry looked down almost in regret, but held his tongue.

"There's a lot of protection for you there. Enchantments, barriers. And the Death Eaters don't know where it is. Not exactly, anyway," he amended at another furious look from Harry.

Harry shook his head and turned to leave.

"All right! You're right," Sirius said finally. "It was wrong. You deserved to know. I'm sorry."

Harry turned back and Sirius could see him considering. Finally, he nodded, and Sirius breathed a sigh of relief. This, at least, he could still do. If nothing else, he could still help Harry.

* * *

><p>"You've told him too much." Remus leaned against the bookshelf in Orion's old study, peering at the titles. Sirius stared into the depths of his glass of firewhiskey. "He's just a boy. He can't handle all of this."<p>

"He's not a child," Sirius said softly. "He's grown up, Remus, no matter what we want to tell ourselves."

"He's a teenager. He should be worrying about girls and Quidditch."

"Merlin's beard, do you really think any of them are going to be thinking about dating when the world is ending?" Sirius downed the rest of his drink and poured another. "He's not much younger than we were. And we were out there fighting, out in the thick of it. And he's in far more danger than we ever were."

"Harry deserves a childhood," Remus said roughly. "We had Hogwarts, we had some innocence."

"Speak for yourself." Sirius stood up unsteadily, feeling the whiskey going to his head. "He deserves to know. He never got a chance to talk to his parents, for God's sake, Moony. He deserves to hear about them. Even if that means telling him how brave they were when times were the way they were."

"I want him to know about James and Lily too. But not like this. We're losing him, Sirius."

"And you think that's my fault, do you?" Sirius countered.

"I didn't say that." Remus put up his hands in a placating gesture.

"If he's lost, it's because he thinks no one trusts him. Hell, no one _does_ trust him, not even you. That's what tore us all apart last time, and I'll be damned if I'll let it happen again!" He felt himself trembling, the world blurring before him. Warm hands gripped his shoulders and then pulled him close for a moment, before guiding him back to his chair.

"You're right, he has to know you trust him." Remus capped the whiskey bottle and moved it out of reach. "I'm just saying…be careful. If he knows too much, he may lose hope."

Sirius looked up at Remus, at the scars lengthening in the wavering candlelight. At the lines of worry and stress worn deep in young skin.

They were all too young for this. All of them. There was no such thing as being ready for war, for digging to the depths of humanity in the hopes of finding good, and instead finding only black.


	8. Chapter 7

**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter Seven**

Mortal peril. _Mortal peril_. Life-ending, grave, epitome of danger peril. And all of them were there.

When they'd had the clock made, mortal peril was a definite option. There was no forseeable end to You-Know-Who's reign, and if nothing else, Molly Weasley wanted to know exactly what state her children were in so she could step in to save them. And barring that, she wanted to know who she needed to kill.

But after thirteen years of relative peace, "mortal peril" had almost faded to simply a pessimistic whim, maybe even a cynical joke. Yet now time seemed to have stopped on that land between life and death.

Molly secretly brought it to Grimmauld Place for the summer. As long as hers and Arthur's hands rested on "work," her children were, in her mind, as safe as they could be. There would be no traveling back and forth, no possible second when they were alone and unprotected. She would return home when they were safe at Hogwarts, under Dumbledore's direct care. In the mean time, she kept them close at hand.

She found herself caring for everyone at headquarters, though, children or not. In fact, it was often the adults who needed it more.

Sometimes it was Arthur, who wore himself out at work and scrambled to make ends meet. Yearning to be the fun father he had always been, chuckling over dinner with the boys, taking Ginny's turns for washing dishes. Yet he was thoroughly exhausted, and night by night he lay next to her, filling the air with tales of Ministry infiltration, deceit and disorder, and above all the toll of deception. He'd draw her close in his arms and whisper into her hair how afraid he was.

Now and again, it was Remus, who returned from the filthy underground of the werewolf society, clothes bathed in sweat, blood and desperation. He would shrug out of his cloak and sink into a chair as she made him tea, while Sirius spoke quiet, encouraging nothings to him. She'd pat his back and bring him a change of clothes and a nice hot meal, tell him they'd sort him out and all would be right as rain soon enough. She would lie.

Occasionally, Severus, who seemed only to show up for a moment or two to relay a message, yet always seemed to stay a moment more just to stare into the fire pondering. She hovered nearby in case he spoke, which he never did, except to shed the burden of the message, and occasionally to take a quick drink.

It was even Sirius, who rattled around in a home too large for him, alternately avoiding and seeking company because his words never came out quite right and he had never really learned to talk about it to another human. She would hear him murmuring secrets to Buckbeak, the rustling of feathers obscuring his fears. And all she could think to do was make his house more like a home, make comforting food and offer encouraging smiles.

The children, it seemed, had ever been the resilient ones. Perhaps it was simply just their innocence. Their childhood was characterized by peace, and their adulthood by war. But perhaps, to them, this was the way of all lives – a sharp divide between the purity of childhood and the responsibility of being an adult. Though they were all too young, far too young, they withstood the stress far better than any of the real adults did. Even Molly.

Because at the end of the day, huddled next to Arthur's sleeping form, even she would cry, silent tears slowly dissolving "mortal peril" into a blur of darkness matching the circles under her eyes and the lies under her skin.

* * *

><p>Life at Grimmauld Place had settled into a certain rhythm. They woke up every morning to clean up the house. It never seemed to get any cleaner no matter how much they worked. They removed doxies from curtains, curses from chains, dust from shelves. The scars remained, dim and faint in the pale light, but still somehow stood out in sharp relief against the idea of what a home should be. Sirius spent days attempting to remove the portraits and other morbid decorations, yet their eyes continued to mock his attempt.<p>

They would always break for a quick lunch in the kitchen, then continue on until more people began to arrive for dinner. The part of the day Sirius dreaded.

They had all chosen their usual places, and the meal would run predictably. The twins bantered. Harry and Ginny shared knowing looks as Ron and Hermione bickered. Remus and Tonks made quiet eye contact as the adults discussed current events and the occasional bit of order business. Molly bustled about and made sure everyone was eating, only resting when Arthur insisted she take a break.

It seemed that they all had someone, some connection, as Sirius sat quietly, uncertain. His mind wandered back to the days of their youth, comparing the relationship he saw between Lily and James – passionate often to the point of arguing, but madly in love to the end – to the only thing he had that was even remotely close – all the nights in muggle bars, with nameless bodies and a dizzying scent of alcohol, until no one minded the feeling of his bones and if not for the bruises pulsing under his skin he might forget the whole night. Not even remotely close.

And Sirius would find himself drawn back by Remus' hand on his own, arresting his knife in the process of cutting each green bean into exactly seven bites, each piece of meat into exactly 17 of which he knew he would eat no more than eight. And he would drop his knife and hastily take a bite that would stick in his throat so that he'd almost choke when asked a question. And he'd avoid Remus' eyes, the ones that were always worried but now also accusing. And he'd meet Harry's eyes and finish his meal, slowly and with precision, always the last person finished, and he would clear an empty plate. And when night fell, he'd undress, fingers running over bones that no longer protruded so sharply and he'd feel the hands of drunken strangers on his skin, bruises welling up, marking him as lonely.


	9. Chapter 8

**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter Eight**

He relished the feeling of the wet London streets under his calloused paws, the cool, damp air ruffling his fur. His vision was hazy, but his ears rustled with the motions his eyes missed. The soft swishing of a trouser leg against leather shoes, the grit of wheels on an iron track, carefully controlled breathing and the apprehensive elation of students. The overwhelming scent of human skin and sweat, of muggle clothes dusty from disuse, and the smog of machinery.

The platform was crowded and he fought the urge to turn every time his fur ruffled, allowed his tongue to hang in the acridness of exhaust, a dopey dog grin over his face as he loped easily at the end of a leash. He kept his shoulder against Harry's knee, feeling each step his godson took, feeling him shift as he noted the stares, the sound of newspapers crumpling reverberating through both of them.

At the edge of the platform, he sat dutifully and waited as the Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys loaded their trunks. He watched as slowly they lowered their guards, as the twins broke into their usual grins as they met up with friends, Ginny chatted with several other girls. He forced himself to look at them with the eyes of a stranger, as he had so long ago, it seemed, realizing how different they appeared both with familiarity and with the quick maturation of being in the headquarters of the Order.

Padfoot took his place at Harry's side as everyone bid their goodbyes, and in the last moment as the train whistle resounded in his ears, rough enough to make him cringe, he pushed off the ground with his front paws, standing before Harry, balanced against his shoulders. He looked into those green eyes, the same eyes that had stared at him from a crib, from a toy broomstick, and the same ones that had found comfort in him after the death of a friend. The desperation, frustration, fear welled up inside him, he wanted to sink his teeth into Harry's sleeve and drag him back home to safety, wanted to stand fierce before him, teeth bared at anything that might hurt him.

"For God's sake, Sirius, act like a dog!" But he was a dog. He was intense loyalty, a guardian, emotion in its purest, most thoughtless form. He was boundless soft edges, a creature controlled in its entirety by the slightest notion from his heart, and he was being pushed lightly back to the ground where he thumped his tail and felt his head fall into a slightly dejected pose.

He felt the train leaving, the rumble through his paws, shaking his fur, and he turned and padded away, following the rest of them, back away from Hogwarts and happiness, back into darkness.

When they arrived back at the house, Padfoot trod heavily up the steps, nosed open his door and leapt up to the bed, curling into a ball, listening to nothing but his breath against the cool sheets and the echo of his heart in his empty dog body. He blinked slowly, periodically, keeping the human thoughts at bay.

* * *

><p><em>"James, what is that sound?" <em>

_ "Not me! Sounds like it's outside." _

_ "It's driving me crazy! Do something!" _

_ He winced against the shrillness of the order, the frustration and tinge of fear behind it, and he abruptly stopped scratching at the door. He stared balefully up at it, whole body aching, the sounds and smells too much to take until with a jerk he was a man again, body pressed against the door because it could hold him up. _

_ He barely heard the lock snick open, the creak of the hinges, scarcely saw James, eyes wide behind his glasses, wand poised for attack, before he lost his footing and lurched forward and James caught him awkwardly, one handed, his other hand twisting uncomfortably so as not to jab Sirius with his wand. _

_ "Lils!" Sirius scrambled to catch himself, regain his footing, but James maintained a hold on him, and suddenly it was two-armed, and he felt himself being balanced, James' arm around his shoulders, other hand steadying him by one arm as he was led to the kitchen table. Lily rushed over, helping James to support Sirius' weight. _

_ "What happened?" James tried to settle Sirius into a chair, but Sirius shook so hard that James kept an arm around him just to be safe. Sirius' chest heaved, breath came in gasps, and he closed his eyes tight, knuckles turning white as he gripped James' jumper. "Okay, mate, okay," James said softly into Sirius' ear. "Let's just slow down, okay? Feel me breathing? Try to match that. Nice and slow. That's it." _

_ Sirius felt a blanket wrap about his shoulders, and James shifted for a moment to adjust it, then came back close to Sirius again. He heard the sound of dishes being shuffled in the kitchen, the stove lighting, his own chair rocking against the tile floor with the force of his trembling. _

_ James took a seat in front of Sirius, leaning forward, elbows on knees, waiting. Sirius cupped his hands around the mug of tea Lily had offered him, watching as the blue slowly leeched from his fingers. Finally, he began in a flat voice. _

_ "I was out in London with Benjy Fenwick. The Dark Mark had gone up and we were headed over there to see if anyone was left." Sirius paused, took a shaky breath. "We were ready, wands out, but it wasn't enough. It was a trap." He swallowed hard and took a shaky breath. "They apparated almost on top of us, six of them. Benjy and I, we were blocking spells from every direction, throwing them back fast as we could. I know we hit a couple of them, but it wasn't…we didn't…" _

_ "You did everything you could," Lily whispered, resting her hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. _

_ "I didn't." Sirius stared into his tea with such concentration that it started to boil, the liquid leaping out of the mug and scalding his hands. He jerked his hands back, wiping the tea off of his hands and wincing. "One of them…one of them threw a curse, and I could have blocked it, but I hesitated and…" Sirius met James' eyes abruptly. "Benjy's dead." _

_ They all fell silent. After a few strained moments, James finally said, "It's not your fault." _

_ Sirius shook his head, disbelieving. "If I hadn't hesitated –"_

_ "Why did you?" James asked. Sirius shrugged. "Thanks for the tea," he mumbled, standing up, feeling himself waver but refusing to show it. He gripped the back of his chair, red welts and blue bruises standing out in sharp contrast to his waxy skin. He turned to leave, made it as far as the door, before he turned back. _

_ "I –" he stopped, shook his head. As he turned toward the door again, his eyes caught the eyes partially obscured by glasses, those eyes that had been with him through everything, that expected nothing from him but the truth. _

_ "It was Regulus." _


	10. Chapter 9

**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter Nine**

Terrified.

It was behind his eyes, always, if you looked close enough, which no one ever did, because most people never gave a damn and the ones who did were shielded from it. But it was there, in each second, behind blue eyes so pale that many looked right through him as if he wasn't there.

Sirius held the edge of the photo up to the flame, letting the light just breathe its warmth in Peter's direction, watching him squirm. He took another long swallow of firewhiskey, smirking at the image without any real amusement.

"Guess you weren't so talentless after all," he said softly. "Killed twelve people with one curse, didn't you? Brought your dear old master back to life. You weren't weak at all."

He shuddered, realizing again all of his mistakes. Years of overlooking Peter, too enthralled with his and James' own magical abilities to dwell much on Peter's lack thereof. He was weak, compared to them, in almost every respect. In a duel, Sirius had no doubt that he would win on his worst day, with ease, even now that Peter had been trained by Voldemort. And yet, Peter was better than him. Peter had never made the mistakes he had. Sirius had been outsmarted by Peter, by poor, pathetic Peter, who had never garnered any notice until it was too late, and by then people were too used to overlooking him to realize the truth.

Peter was smart, Sirius mused. Incredibly so. Because he had never trusted anyone the way Sirius and James had. He had never believed so fully in a friend that he would risk an enemy.

"I was an idiot to ever trust you," Sirius hissed at the picture, watching the edges curl and blacken. "I should've known."

That one moment, the one he had seen in the back of his mind ever since that day, ever since he found the Potter's home in ruins. There was that briefest second that, in his memory, expanded to days, years, twelve imprisoned, obsessed years of mulling over that single second that could have made all the difference.

_The air crackled with magic, razor-sharp jets of light knifing toward them, away from them, across them, every which way. The street was a mess of blackened rubble, the smoldering debris still drifting through the unsettled air and Sirius choked as he gasped for breath. _

_ He was standing with his back against James', throwing curse after curse, trusting James to block those from the other direction. Lily was at James' side, easily holding her own, while Peter provided a magical shield for both of them. _

_ They were all panting, the battle had gone on far too long – craters were appearing in the streets from deflected curses, rain pouring down so hard they were all completely soaked, movements inhibited by sodden clothes. _

_ Sirius deflected yet another stream of green light, sending his own red counter back, followed by three bursts of light in quick succession, but the Death Eater behind the grotesque mask dodged. _

_ "Is that all you've got?" he heard James taunt, though the exertion was clear in his voice. And then he saw it, from the corner of his eye, a brilliantly blue light headed straight at Lily, the shield defecting at just the worst moment, his eyes catching Wormtail's even as he spun to the side and, ignoring the curse coming straight at him, blocked the one coming at Lily. Watching the reflection of refracted light in Wormtail's eyes, the selfish relief behind them, even as he felt the curse hit him, as he felt the blood flow down his robes like warm rain, knees folding, and one last burst of pure white light exploding from his wand directly at that hideous mask before the light blinded him. _

The look, that single second when Wormtail protected himself instead of Lily, that moment he could see that Wormtail was glad the spilt blood was not his own. He had brushed it off, then, waking up in his own bed in his almost empty flat, James hovering over him, and Lily holding his confiscated wand to prevent him from "helping."

_"How do you feel, mate?" James asked, anxiously. Sirius shifted weakly and groaned as the pain raced through his every nerve. _

_ "Fine," he forced out, hoarsely, and Lily quickly conjured him a glass of water. "Where's Peter?" _

_ "He's at home. He's fine. We're all fine. The muggles, too." Sirius squinted at Lily for a moment, before he recalled that they had been trying to prevent the senseless murder of a group of muggles on that street, that they were fighting for those innocent lives. _

_ And he remembered Peter, and that look in his eyes, that moment his spell happened to fail, though if Peter was good at anything, it was protecting himself. And protect himself he had. _

_ Sirius pushed himself up, slowly, laboriously, until he was seated, back resting against the pillows. It hurt to breathe, yet he had to see for himself that they were all in one piece. _

The photo paper melting, dripping viscously onto the table, pulled Sirius back to the present, and he quickly blew out the flames and wiped up the mess, before downing the rest of his drink. He lurched to his feet, staggering upstairs with the photo, feeling the alcohol pumping through his veins. He made it to his room, but stopped at the door and turned, looking back to stare across the hall at the closed door of his brother's room. He took three tottering steps to the door, and opened it, the familiar green and silver hangings shining as brightly as ever.

He scowled at it for a long moment, before he tore a strip from the green and silver banner, and froze. Underneath the Slytherin banner peeked the edge of another photo, just out of sight. He lifted the banner, and tugged lightly at the corner of the smooth paper, then peered at the photo. It was faded with age, despite clearly having been protected from the sun. It was almost thirty years old, he'd estimate, by the size of the two boys in the picture. One clearly older, but not by much, they stood side by side, identical smiles as they laughed at a long-forgotten joke. The long black hair, the pale skin, precise features. It was a far younger Sirius, his arm around his brother's shoulders, laughing, without a care in the world. Yet.

Sirius wrapped Peter's photo in the strip of torn banner and dropped it among the pictures of other Slytherins, other Death Eaters, scattered across the dresser, where he belonged. But the other photo he carried with him, back to his own room, where he lay on his bed, world spinning off-kilter with alcohol, and he stared at the picture.

Back when his brother was a part of him, when there was something left to be saved, before their family fully had their claws in him, before Sirius lay broken and bleeding for a cause and Regulus shook his head and walked away.

This, this memory he slipped under his pillow and, though the sun was already rising and he was still fully dressed, he closed his eyes and dreamed of a world that could have been if only his brother could believe a little more of people and if he could believe a little less.


	11. Chapter 10

**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter Ten**

"Sirius?" Remus' call echoed through the house from the empty kitchen. He sighed and trudged up the stairs, pulling his cloak tighter. The house possessed a definite chill, hardly displaced by the short-lived fire through which he had arrived. It seemed remarkably drafty for a house designed to be a fortress, whose every window was covered by thick curtains to prevent spying.

He cast a glance toward each room he passed, but assumed that Sirius would be in his own room, as he usually was. At Sirius' door, Remus knocked lightly and the door opened slightly, showing a dark room.

"_Lumos_," Remus said softly, using his wand to cast light toward the rumpled, empty bed. A shadow jerked on the floor and Remus followed it to the bathroom door, left slightly ajar.

"Sirius?" He was answered by the sound of retching. Remus pushed open the door, wand held high to provide light.

Sirius hunched over the toilet, vomiting violently. He was wearing jeans and socks but nothing else, his skin pulled thin and pale over bones in the white light of the wand. Sirius spat once more then flushed the toilet, turning to look at Remus warily. "Ever heard of privacy?"

Remus waved his wand and the room lit up. "Damn it, Moony!" Sirius groaned, eyes pressed closed tightly. He lurched to his feet, turning to the sink to splash some water on his face and rinse out his mouth. When he turned back and moved toward the bedroom, Remus was suddenly hit with the reek of alcohol.

"You've been drinking," he observed. Sirius glared at him, pushing past him to the bedroom wordlessly.

"Is this what your life is going to be now, Sirius?" Remus demanded. "Just going to drink until you're sick? And you clearly haven't been eating."

"It's none of your business," Sirius snapped, pulling a t-shirt over his head, followed by a baggy sweatshirt. Even then, his frame still looked too small, and Remus could not ignore the way Sirius' bones had jutted.

"It is my business," Remus said slowly, trying to remain calm. "You are a member of the Order. You're important."

"Like hell I am," Sirius scoffed. "What am I good for? I stay in the house, I don't even go out for a bit of fucking air, all while you and Mad-Eye and even Harry for Merlin's sake are out there fighting Voldemort! What the hell do you think I'm good for?"

"You're keeping headquarters safe. You're here for all of us. For Harry." Remus' words sounded hollow even to his own ears, and he could see in Sirius' grey eyes that he did not believe a word of it. Sirius turned on his heel and stalked out of the room, Remus trailing behind him, down the stairs.

"Sirius, please, I just want to help," Remus tried. "Maybe I can stay here with you for a while."

"You're busy. And I don't need this."

"I'm not too busy for my friends!"

Sirius shrugged and stomped to the pantry and pulled out a bottle of firewhiskey. He twisted the top off and brought it to his lips, taking a long pull before Remus, furious, lunged forward and ripped the bottle from Sirius' hand, flinging it loosely toward the sink behind Sirius, where it shattered, bits of glass and searing liquid bursting forth and biting into Sirius' skin.

"Would you quit it? You can't spend your life feeling sorry for yourself! There are worse things than being stuck in this house!"

"What would you know about any of it?" Sirius roared, their faces inches apart. There was a flush high on his cheeks and his eyes burned with anger. "I've spent twelve years in Azkaban, and seventeen here! I think I'm entitled to a little self-pity!"

"Everyone has it hard, Sirius!" Remus retorted. "I have to live with werewolves, act inhuman. Do you think I enjoy that?"

"At least you're doing something!" Sirius spat.

Remus didn't respond. He turned away, breathing hard, clenching both his teeth and his fists. He remained like that for several minutes, allowing his anger to ebb, until he could finally turn to face Sirius again.

"I'm sorry," he said, voice rough from yelling. "I shouldn't have yelled. But you know I can't stand to watch you do this to yourself."

Sirius stood, trembling, face betraying no emotion but exhaustion. After a long moment, he looked Remus directly in the eye. "Then don't watch."

* * *

><p><em>He had returned to Grimmauld place once after running away. He had vowed never to set foot in this place again, and yet, here he was standing on the doorstep. Lifting one hand, he knocked sharply on the heavy door. <em>

_ It swung open immediately and he glanced down at Kreacher before entering the long, dark hallway. He found his parents in the parlor, by the sound of hushed voices and gentle sobs. He pushed the doors open and strode in, feeling the floorboards creak beneath his slight weight. _

_ "Is it true?" he said roughly, his voice scraping out of his throat, past tears and regrets and bitter memories. _

_ Walburga dissolved into tears, the black kohl she usually wore around her eyes making prison bars down her white cheeks. Orion stood, looming ominously. _

_ "And what is it to you, boy?" he barked, eyes too bright. Sirius met his eyes coolly, noting the unusual wetness and the distance of them. _

_ "He was my brother," Sirius said simply. _

_ "He is not," Walburga choked out. "You're no son of mine!" _

_ Sirius turned his gaze to her, observing her frailty, the exquisite thinness of her bones, the weakness of her skin and wondered that he was still afraid of her. Yet his voice betrayed nothing. _

_ "Be that as it may," he began. "all I ask for is the truth. But I think I've already found it." He turned to leave, to walk out of this house for the last time, when a large hand caught his bicep and jerked him back around. _

_ "This is your doing, isn't it?" Orion hissed. "You're the reason he's dead, and now you're coming to make sure the job is done. And no doubt you know that we are now in danger as well!" He towered over Sirius, face red and furious, teeth bared in the snarl of a cornered animal. "Maybe if I take care of you, we won't have a problem anymore." _

_ "I had nothing to do with it," Sirius said, forcing himself to sound calm. "I heard that he died and came to be sure. Nothing more." _

_ "You're lying." _

_ Sirius did not reply, just glared into Orion's eyes. Orion's grip on his arm tightened, and already he could feel the bruise forming. _

_ "Or maybe you're just here to pick the bones. Well, he didn't leave anything for you." Orion shoved Sirius abruptly, and Sirius stumbled back but remained upright, refused to fall as he once had, refused to be anything but strong in front of the man who used to be his father. _

_ "I'll be going," Sirius intoned, turning and walking back out of the parlor, down the hall, forcing his legs to maintain a steady pace, not to break into a run, even when he heard the crash behind him as his father upended a table. _

_ And he opened the door and stepped outside, apparated back to his own flat, where he collapsed onto the floor, legs weak, whole body shaking, lungs stretching and pulling for air but finding none. _

_ He didn't know how long he remained that way until suddenly they were there with him, James with his arms wrapped around Sirius' shoulders, stroking his hair as Sirius buried his face in James's shoulder. Remus with his soothing words, helping James to pick Sirius up from the floor and half-drag, half-carry him to his bed. And Peter who tutted concernedly and heated water for tea, who sat on the end of the bed as Sirius curled into a ball around his pillow, while Lily held him, , smoothing her hand over his hair as he stared unseeingly past all of them. And they all listened as Sirius rambled nonsensically about the brother he'd failed and the man he'd become and parents who didn't love anything and the childhood that still tore at him, night after night after night until nothing was left but his bones. _


	12. Chapter 11

__**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter Eleven**

_The air was so still he could hear his breath echo. Darkness draped across the corners of the flat, scarcely wilting in the weak light of the couple of bare bulbs. From his stance at the doorway, he had full view of the kitchen and living room, which were technically one room and a rather small one at that, and he could see through the door into the bedroom, where a single overburdened mattress rested on visible box springs, the mattress itself obscured only by his threadbare sheets. _

_ The state of the flat had never much bothered him – he was rarely here for more than a few hours, and most of that time was spent collapsed in the too-large dent in the mattress or trembling in the lukewarm shower that was at least better than his no-heat living quarters. But as he cast a glance back to Remus, saw his friend's brows draw together in that worried expression, he realized what it must look like. _

_ "I know it's not…" he faltered."Uh. Would you like some tea?" _

_ Remus gave him a long look then nodded his consent. Sirius bustled about the kitchen, causing an almighty crash when he knocked over every pot and pan he owned – all three of them – in his search for a kettle. _

_ "Don't cook much?" Remus asked, eyebrows raised as he glanced into a cupboard that was entirely empty save for a jar of bouillon cubes, a box of crackers, and a box full of tea bags. _

_ Sirius looked defensive. "I can make soup." He pointed toward a cabinet closer to the floor, which upon investigation, held exactly three cans of beef stew. _

_ "My mistake," Remus said, sounding not at all convinced. "I'll go out to the market later." _

_ "You don't have to cook for me, Moony," Sirius insisted. Remus chuckled. _

_ "Maybe not, but I do have to cook for myself." He paused, looking pointedly at Sirius' loose jeans and baggy jumper. "And you could certainly do with a meal that doesn't taste of aluminum." _

_ "I'm not doing so badly for just starting out," Sirius argued. "And with all the Order business, I'm hardly here." _

_ "You're right. It's fine. Thanks for having me, Pads," Remus said softly, and Sirius noted the way his gaze drifted away at that moment. The way he could almost see in Remus' eyes the rejection, the struggle society had placed on him. _

_ "Of course," he said, placing a hand on Remus' shoulder. "As long as you need a place." _

_ The sat at the kitchen table, mugs of tea steaming before them. Sirius wrapped his hands around his mug, feeling the burn as feeling returned to his fingertips. _

_ "Reckon we'll be safe here," he said at last. "In a muggle district, no real ties to anyone or anything. And I leased it under a false name." _

_ Remus nodded assent. They fell silent for a while, sipping their tea, until Remus finally spoke. _

_ "Did you ever think that when we left Hogwarts, this is what we'd be doing?" He sighed. "I never thought being part of the war would be easy, I'm not saying that. But I didn't quite picture this." _

_ Sirius was silent for a long moment. "It's a lot better than other things I could imagine." He stood up quickly, whisking away the empty mugs, pretending not to see the sadness in Remus' eyes. _

_ "You take the bed," Sirius said, his back still turned. "I can transform, sleep on the floor." _

_ "I'm not taking your bed." _

_ "Really. I don't mind." _

_ Remus tried to insist, but Sirius had always been stubborn to the end, and in the end, Remus was too tired to keep arguing, especially when he knew it was a losing battle. So he picked up his one battered suitcase and carried it to the bedroom, kicking off his shoes and collapsing on the bed. Sirius slipped into the bathroom, and by the time he came out, Remus was already out, curled tightly under the thin blankets. Sirius smiled, then transformed silently, curling up next to the bed, tail covering his nose. _

_ His sleep was restless, plagued by distant, unfamiliar noises, and the constant cold, until finally Remus mumbled that he didn't mind sharing and Sirius leapt onto the bed and Remus threw half the blanket over him and fell asleep with one hand fisted in Padfoot's fur. Sirius lay still, listening to his breath on the coarse threads of the sheets until the sound and the slight contact lulled him into sleep._

* * *

><p>The only way Severus Snape's work for the Order of the Phoenix could have been any more stressful was if James Potter was still involved. As it was, he still had to be concerned with blowing his cover, with passing on just the right information, just so…it all became very exhausting. And of course, dealing with Sirius Black was no small matter either.<p>

In school, Black had been almost as bad as Potter. He had teased, taunted, and hexed just as much, if not perhaps even more. But he was noticeably less arrogant than Potter – though, Severus could not think of anyone who was even close to being as arrogant as James Potter. And most importantly, Sirius had no interest in dating Lily.

Truth be told, Severus had been perfectly willing to leave the past behind when they left Hogwarts. He was a Death Eater, Black and Potter were not, and that was all there was to it. They were not any more his enemy than any other Order member and he was much too busy to give them any further consideration.

But then they all had to go and ruin everything. Of course, Potter would be the one to attract the Dark Lord's notice, attention-seeking git that he always had been. And of course, that inevitably propelled Lily into the spotlight as well. And all of this meant that Severus' life, once again and despite his best efforts, was severely complicated by James Potter.

As if that wasn't enough, by virtue of his new role as double agent, Severus was forced to risk his own neck to save those that had tormented him. Not a day went by that he did not picture them all huddled in safety, thanks to him, laughing at the irony of it all.

But once Lily was killed, this once again was all in the past. Though his sorrow was as raw as ever, the one thing Severus could hold on to throughout the ordeal was that he would never have to deal with Potter or Black again.

So it was with a great deal of bitterness, much cursing, and an incredibly foul mood that Severus apparated to 12 Grimmauld Place one chilly Hogsmeade Saturday to pass on a bit of information.

_In, out, no time to get angry_, he promised himself. Both Albus and Minerva were already on his back this week about his foul mood, after he had taken almost eighty points and terrified three first years to the point of tears. He had his inspection by the one and only Hogwarts High Inquisitor coming up – if he continued this behavior he might have even more reason to be even more foul-mannered than usual.

As he entered the front door, the portraits, as usual, began their disharmonious shrieking. He rushed forward to wrench the curtains over Walburga Black shut, already feeling a headache forming.

By the time Severus silenced all the portraits and uttered every swear word he knew, Black had finally appeared at the top of the stairs.

"About time you show up to help, now that all the work is done," Severus grumbled. Then he took a longer look at Black.

He looked almost deathly pale save for the flush on his cheeks, and he was clearly shivering despite what appeared to be at least three layers of clothes, topped with a blanket wrapped tightly about his shoulders. Black peered at him blearily and began an apparently painful descent down the stairs.

"Okay, stop," Severus snapped. "I don't really need you infecting me. You may not have anything to do but hang around in your house, but I have a lot of work to do."

Black's eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth to speak, but was overcome with a spell of intense coughing, a deep rattling resounding in his chest, continuing on until he was out of breath, clinging to the banister for support though he was already halfway to sitting on the step, as he was already hunched so far over from the force of his hacking. He gasped a couple of shallow breaths, then finally managed. "If you're so busy, get on with it."

" I'm here to leave word for Kingsley that the Dark Lord has noticed the guard around the Department of Mysteries and he is planning a way around it, though there is nothing firm yet." Severus paused. "Are you even going to remember this?"

Black nodded. "What else do I have to do, right?" he muttered darkly.

"Well, then I'll be going before you expel any further noxious germs into the air we are sharing, though Merlin knows you've probably already given me whatever this is." He waved his hand dismissively at Black's generally pathetic state.

"I can only hope so," Black retorted.

Severus spun on his heel and wordlessly strode out, disapparating as soon as he shut the door behind him.

He grimaced at the ramshackle sight of the Weasley house, leaning precariously and swaying ominously in the slight breeze. He trekked through the dusty field, past the magical enchantments, finally reaching what he hoped was the back door, honestly hoping no one would consider this a presentable front to their home. He rapped sharply on the door and waited.

"Severus!" Molly Weasley exclaimed as she opened the door. "Is something the matter? Are the children –?"

"They're fine," Severus cut her off.

"Then…would you like to come in?"

Severus cast a look up at the house that was very apparently held together by magic. "No. I just visited Grimmauld place. I left a message with Black, but seeing as he is apparently quite ill, I doubt he'll remember it." He quickly relayed the message to Molly. She nodded in understanding and he moved to leave.

He turned, almost as an afterthought, though this was his purpose all along, and told her "You might send someone to see to Black. He doesn't seem up to taking care of himself."

And with that, he strode back through the tall grass and disapparated, considering his duties done.

If Black died, at least that would not be on his conscience as well.


	13. Chapter 12

**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter Twelve**

Sirius Black was a man of strong convictions and uncompromising beliefs. These principles had caused much strife and bore many struggles over the course of his life, but he had remained insistent. Sirius Black was nothing if not stubborn.

There were many problems associated with being a man of principles, but the absolute worst was when, as was inevitable, he had to choose one principle over another. It was an uncomfortable situation, the one in which a man was forced to choose not good over evil, but the lesser of two evils or the better of two goods.

Sirius believed in, above most else, the truth. He believed the truth was one of the most valuable tools in the world, that honesty was among the most admirable qualities one person might possess. But he recognized that honesty did not mean complete and utter honesty. It did not mean there were no secrets, no white lies. To consider himself an honest man, he did not believe he must blurt out everything he thought as he thought it, or that he must reveal every bit of information he knew. And when it got right down to it, the fact that Sirius Black was an escaped fugitive living a moderately criminal life, he did not hold much claim to the title of an honest man.

The title he could claim, and the one he did, quietly and without much ado, was self-sacrificing. If Sirius could not be the epitome of honesty, he was willing to sacrifice honesty for the well-being of those he loved. Much as it pained him to lie, he could force a few white lies because truth is a white-hot poker with the ability to sear straight through the soul. He'd much rather his soul ache than theirs.

So he lied. "No, I'm not sick." "Yes, I've been eating fine." "No, I haven't been drinking too much." His skin felt uncomfortable, as though it wasn't quite his own, a little too tight, as he tailored and altered what he was to fit what they needed him to be.

Because if he were honest, he would say "I'm sick. I possibly have pneumonia and I can barely make it into my bathroom without collapsing from exhaustion." He would say "I can't tell when I'm hungry or when I should eat because hungry feels normal and full feels wrong and no matter how many times I tell myself that is wrong, I know I'd be lying if I said otherwise." He'd say "I get most of my calories from whiskey."

But his problems were too big for the space he had, the space they had, and if he let them out, that black shroud on his soul would expand past his body, past his soul, into everything and everyone around him, and they had enough struggles as it was.

So he folded the shadows neatly, bound tight and charmed to stay in the empty space below his heart, nestled neatly between the bottle of booze and the little empty hunger box. In the middle of the aching chasm, too dark for anyone to see.

* * *

><p>Remus drew a chair up and stared at the heap of blankets that was apparently Sirius.<p>

"Molly says you're being difficult," he stated plainly. Slowly, the top of Sirius' head emerged from the depths of his cocoon. "She says you won't eat properly and that you keep trying to summon whiskey." Sirius glared at him. "You always were a terrible patient."

"Just go away and let me die in peace," Sirius grumbled hoarsely, retreating back under the blankets.

"At least eat the soup she made," Remus bartered. Sirius stuck his head back out. "You know it has to taste better than whiskey."

"If I eat it, will you go away?"

"Sure," Remus said amicably. Sirius sighed, which led to a long spell of coughing, but eventually he sat up, propped against his headboard and accepted the bowl of soup Remus was holding out. He took a bite, paused, then nodded, taking another, smaller bite.

"You don't have to watch me, you know," Sirius said, scowling.

"Sorry," Remus said. "It's been a while. You look…" he trailed off.

"Yeah, well, it's not like there's anyone here to impress," Sirius snapped.

"Some people eat just because their body requires it, not to impress people," Remus retorted. Sirius shot him yet another dirty look.

"You try surviving on my cooking for more than a couple of days."

Remus raised his eyebrows. "I'm sure Molly would be happy to send something over for you."

"I don't want to bother her," Sirius said. "She and Arthur have enough going on."

"Why, what's going on?"

"Well, you know Dolores Umbridge, from the Ministry?" Sirius didn't bother to pause, knowing just exactly how well Remus did know; her bigotry was one of the main reasons Remus was society's outcast. "Well, Fred and George have been in all kinds of trouble with her. They're on the verge of expulsion. Plus Harry, Ron, and Ginny have all had detentions with her," Sirius continued. "She has them carving lines into their own skin."

"Does Dumbledore know?" Remus demanded, though he couldn't imagine Dumbledore allowing this, if he did know.

"Harry won't tell him," Sirius replied. He pushed the half-full bowl of soup at Remus and slumped back down, clearly exhausted. "I tried to get him to go to Dumbledore, or McGonagall, someone, but he won't. He keeps saying Dumbledore has enough going on and that he doesn't want to cause more trouble."

"We ought to tell Dumbledore." Remus looked at the soup, then set the bowl on the table next to Sirius' bed, deciding, for the moment, not to push it.

"I'm not sure Dumbledore can do anything," Sirius said softly. "The Ministry is forcing their way into Hogwarts, giving Umbridge all kinds of power. I'd be surprised if Dumbledore makes it through the year there, the way things are going." He paused for a long moment. "Please tell me you, at least, have good news."

Remus shook his head. "I'm still trying to get into the inner circle," he reported. "Fenrir Greyback trusts few at all, and even fewer completely. He's still suspicious of me." Remus forced a weak smile. "I'm still just trying to get accepted enough to get anything useful."

Sirius shook his head. "I'm sorry, Moony," he rasped, before breaking into a fit of coughing. He pulled the blankets up further, shivering.

Remus frowned at him, worried, gently reaching out to brush Sirius' forehead. "You're burning up."

"I'll be okay," Sirius muttered. "Rem, I think we might be losing this war."

Remus wanted to tell Sirius he was wrong, that the Ministry would come around, that things would look up. But if he were to be honest, he could not say any of those things. He could say that things were looking bad. He could say that it looked like most everything was on the verge of falling apart. He could say Sirius was clearly self-destructing but he didn't have the time, energy, or capacity to hold him together.

What it all boiled down to, the one thing he could honestly say: "We're doing the best we can."


	14. Chapter 13

**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter Thirteen**

By the time Remus returned to visit, Sirius had made it out of bed, back to wandering the house aimlessly and occasionally destructively, as he occasionally took offense to some of the decorations Kreacher had taken the liberty of displaying. Remus found him in such a state, attempting to drag a painting, none too gently, from the wall of the drawing room.

Remus stepped in quickly, seizing the painting as Sirius' strength seemed to waver. Remus lifted it easily from Sirius' hands, easing it to the floor while Sirius collapsed to the dusty couch.

"I was doing fine," Sirius wheezed, coughing roughly as the dust aggravated his lungs.

"You're still not up to full strength," Remus warned. "And you really ought to be in bed. If for no other reason than you're driving Molly crazy."

"It's my house," Sirius grumbled, not moving. "And I'm doing just fine. Molly has me on a steady diet of soup and Pepper-Up Potion."

"According to Molly, she can't get you on a steady diet of anything because you won't eat more than three bites per meal." Sirius lurched to his feet, clearly outraged, and Remus looked him head to toe, cutting him off before he could begin his defensive speech. "And don't bother denying it, because I can tell."

"I've been sick!" Sirius protested, folding his arms defensively. "I haven't had an appetite."

"Sirius," Remus said softly. "You're my best friend. So let's be honest with each other. We both know that's not the whole story. And maybe you're fooling Molly, but I know you better than that."

"What do you want from me, Rem?" Sirius said, sinking back onto the couch.

"You've got to do better than this, Sirius," Remus said, sitting next to him. "We can't send you to St. Mungo's this time, if it gets out of hand. You can't let yourself get that sick."

"I'm not…" Sirius mumbled, trailing off.

"What are you afraid of?" Remus said. "Anyone will tell you that you're thin. You'd have to gain probably four stone before you'd even be remotely close to overweight."

"It isn't about that," Sirius muttered. "I'm not worried about getting fat."

"Then what?"

"You can't understand this," Sirius said flatly. "Everyone thinks it's so easy. 'Just eat.' You think I wouldn't if it were that simple?"

"I know it's not that easy."

"I know I don't look good. I know what you see, okay? But just because I can see it doesn't mean I can stop it."

"What can I do? Do you want me to move in here for a while, help you through it?"

"No," Sirius said sullenly. "You have real work to do. I'm not going to let you sacrifice that just for me. I'm not worth that." He stood up, striding towards the door of the drawing room.

"Yes, you are," Remus said insistently. Sirius didn't stop. "Sirius!"

Sirius paused at the doorway, hand poised on the knob. "Not everything can be fixed, Remus." And he disappeared up the stairs.

Remus sat on the sofa for a long moment, repeating the words over and over in his mind, the darkness of it, and the darkness so evident in Sirius. And the longer he thought the more he could see it, the darkness of their world, of their demons, of the things Sirius lived with on a daily basis, of the things he himself experienced. The darkness he had seen in James before his death, the darkness that had finally taken over Peter. Those little things that clung tightly to their souls, the creeping doubts, the futile fears, the obsessions that persevered even under the strongest moral convictions. Maybe there was no fixing these things. Maybe the truth was the little corners of darkness were permanent fixtures in even the brightest wizards. Maybe it was all about scouring the darkness in whatever way you could, if it meant you could keep it from taking over.

Finally, he pulled a piece of parchment from his pocket, scribbled the only words he could think of, and with a wave of his wand, sent it flying up the stairs to Sirius' room, before trudging down to the kitchen to use the Floo.

"I never said you were broken."

* * *

><p><em>He was self-destructive. He brutally attacked both body and mind, leaving carnage strewn in his path. He felt it all distantly, his body feeling almost foreign to him at times, while at the same time, the pain was so intense and the wounds so deep that they left him shaking, shocked, shamed. <em>

_ At twenty years old, he had seen far more than his share of despair. But they all had. James and Lily, harboring the guilt of lives lost for them, the blood not on their hands but marring the door of their hideout where the conscienceless and truly guilty pounded to get in, the blood always there to remind them of how much they mean and to what they must measure up. Remus, struggling on his own for years before finally accepting that no matter what the bounds of his abilities were, the limits of his lycanthropy would always be too far within them. Even Peter, the fear in the face of friends' fortitude, the knowledge he will never be more courageous than cowardly. Even in the safety of their homes, out of reach of death eaters, the demons drudged up from the dark, and they all had to face them. _

_ Sirius told himself he was no different. He was not special. He had no right, none at all, to permit the demons to defeat him when the others stood strong, turning their fears outward to determination and force. _

_ But he was worn down. And maybe his demons were just a little stronger than theirs. James' demons had James' voice and no others, easily drowned out in the crowd of people telling him not to listen. But Sirius was a different matter. _

_ Because when Sirius black lay awake at night, the voices that came from the darkness within were all different, rising in cacophonous crescendo. _

_ His mother, voice a venomous hiss, spitting words like "worthless," "useless," "disappointment," "not my son." _

_ His father, slurring in the kind of honesty brought out only when the alcohol kills all else: "weak," "pathetic," "waste of skin." _

_ His brother, timid but somehow sure, "it isn't worth it, to be like you. None of it matters enough for this." _

_ James, pleadingly desperate, "I can't deal with this, with you doing this. You know I can't. Why are you doing this now?"_

_ Remus, ponderously slow, "All your energy should be going to fight. You should be out there stopping Voldemort, not killing yourself." _

_ Self-destruction is the flipside of self-preservation. Maybe he was killing himself. Maybe it was true that he could feel his body feeding on itself, his muscles shredding, his magic dwindling, and maybe it was true that no one had the time or energy to deal with this now, including him. But it wasn't a decision he made one day, to die. He wasn't even trying to die. He wasn't trying anything. He just wasn't trying, period. _

_ When he was sixteen, recovering, promising himself daily that his life was worth something, back then it had seemed like an uphill battle, but a winnable war. And maybe sometimes he slid back, but overall he was moving forward, and one day this would all be a distant memory. The trouble was over, there was no reason still to starve. _

_ But there never was a reason to starve. There was just never a reason not to. He was not trying to die. He was not trying to live. He was just trying not to hurt. Because every time he saw another body of another friend, another house shrouded with the Dark Mark, another Death Eater that might be the brother he hadn't saved, every time it took everything he had to give and more. And he kept fighting, kept searching, long past what he had to give, and by the end of the day when all he had taken in was sorrow, bitterness, fear and regret, there was no room for anything else. The fear at each bite he could take, even though he could justify every one and more, after everything else he couldn't face this too. He ached with the fullness, his skin stretched tight over his bones to contain all of it, and it was all he could do to collapse into bed, run his fingers over the sharpness of his hips and collarbones, the ridges of his ribs, remind himself he was not bleeding, he was not broken, every piece was there, visibly identifiable as whole. And he found comfort in it, because even though he knew it was wrong, he knew that bones are bad and life requires living, he was still here. He was strong. He didn't need to eat the way they did, he was not dependent. _

_ He was doing all he could, struggling through it like they all were, and maybe seeing his skeleton scared them but he was surviving and persevering. And even when his demons screamed their loudest, heart-rending notes, the growling of his stomach would drown it all out. _


	15. Chapter 14

**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter Fourteen**

Some nights, his vision spun at a slant that told Sirius he was headed for trouble. Everything always spun when he drank, but there were nights when it all seemed to tip to his left by several degrees, leaving him with the urge to walk about with his head tilted, but no matter how he twisted and turned, everything remained slanted. And at those times, Sirius knew he had overdone it.

If he had eaten before he started drinking, he reflected ponderingly, as he laid his head on the table in front of him and glared as everything wavered past the horizon of the tabletop, if he had eaten something, this probably would not be happening. He hadn't though. He had eaten a single scrambled egg this morning when his stomach ached with hunger so intense he could barely stand at the stove to cook it. But even then, after a single bite, the urge to shove the plate away, to pour salt over it until it was unpalatable, to quickly scrape it all into the bin and throw it out before he could take another bite, that compulsion very nearly won out over the dizzying pang of hunger in his stomach that he knew would not be quelled. And he considered, while his scrambled egg became cold, that this obsession was unreasonable, that it made no sense to starve and that he was miserable hungry. That hunger hurt and that it took more every ounce of will he possessed not to listen to the call of his body to nourish, protect, fortify. But it took every ounce of will also to force himself to take a second bite, to chew and swallow and not throw up, because for reasons he could not quite put a name to or justify, he was terrified. He was guilty, uncertain, and he cast a glance around the kitchen to assure himself no one was watching this before he could manage to take another small bite, and then another, and his panic increased exponentially with each until by the time it was gone he was hyperventilating in a panic he reminded himself was unreasonable, but the feeling of being not quite as hungry was foreign and uncomfortable in a way he could not quite define.

Thanks to all of that, he was now absolutely sick from drinking. He told himself for the fourth night in a row, that he really ought to quit drinking, and that honestly, no one likes the taste of firewhiskey. In fact, no one really likes feeling like this, once they've drunk enough to do it, and maybe if he were having more fun he would be willing to overlook the unsteady sloshing in his belly and the realization that his vision and perception of where he was had little to do with where he actually was, but he was not having fun and it was not worth overlooking. And when something glowed brightly in front of his closed eyes and he shot upright but his vision remained uncomfortably pinpointed at table level, he resolved that he would pour out the rest of his whiskey and move on with his life.

A Patronus in the shape of a cat sat before him, flicking its tail and looking as disdainful as he imagined its conjurer would, had she been here to scold him and give him detention.

"Arthur Weasley was attacked tonight. Molly is on her way to meet him at St. Mungo's. Uncertain if he will make it. His children will be arriving at headquarters in fifteen minutes." And it vanished.

Damn it all. Sirius lurched to his feet and almost collapsed to the floor before his head suddenly caught up to the rest of him. He stumbled towards the sink, dumping out the remaining whiskey, flinging a kettle on the stove to make coffee, and staggering awkwardly toward the staircase. His ratty jeans and t-shirt probably reeked of alcohol, at the very least, he had been wearing them for almost two days now and no one really needed to see that. By his count he had just ten minutes by the time he made it to his room – no time for a shower or a shave, though he did need one, washed up a tiny bit, brushed his teeth, stripped off his clothes and threw on new ones, before rushing back down the stairs. In the kitchen, he slugged back a cup of coffee as quickly as he could, what with the scalding temperature, and refilled his cup. He paused for a moment to breathe, assessing the current state of his mind. He was feeling significantly sobered, though he knew that could be attributed far more to panic and shock than to his actual blood alcohol levels. Of all the nights to be drunk off his ass, he had to choose the one where he'd actually be needed. Though if he were honest, he'd say it wasn't so much a choice of this night as it was a habit every night.

But no more, he resolved, as the air in front of him warped uncomfortably, and four redheaded children plus Harry spun into view holding what Sirius surmised to be a portkey, and he tried to focus his mind enough to explain the situation and comfort them.

He never should have been this ill-prepared at any moment. Constant vigilance. Moody would have his head for it.

* * *

><p>"How are they doing?" Remus leaned against the door of the study, speaking in a low voice.<p>

"A hell of a lot better, now that they know Arthur's all right," Sirius sighed, slouching into his father's desk chair. His drunkenness had long since transformed into the worst hangover of his life, his head throbbing with a combination of stale alcohol and lack of sleep. "They're at the hospital visiting him now."

"I know," Remus said.

They fell into an awkward silence. Sirius hadn't seen Remus since he was just getting over pneumonia, since the argument, since Remus had sent him a note saying he hadn't said he was broken. And while Sirius appreciated the sentiment, he wasn't entirely sure where that left them.

Remus cleared his throat. "Guess we'd better just get to it."

Sirius nodded uncertainly.

"I've thought about it, Sirius. You're right, I can't just quit and move in here. Dumbledore's made it clear that my work with the werewolves is important to the war effort." Sirius nodded again, half vindicated at the acknowledgement, half unreasonably disappointed that Remus wouldn't choose him.

"I know, Moony," he mumbled.

"But clearly you can't keep on like this. Frankly, you look like death warmed over, you have alcohol coming out of your pores and the two layers of clothes you're wearing aren't making you look any less thin."

"Gee, thanks," Sirius snapped. "And you're just downright beautiful!"

Remus frowned. "I'm not going to keep helping you hide this."

"What are you talking about?"

"Right now, the only people who know about your diagnosis are me, Dumbledore, Minerva and Poppy. And right now, I'm the only one who knows you've relapsed."

"I have _not_ –"

"I'm not here to play games, Sirius!" Remus interrupted. "'Relapse,' 'rough time,' 'under the weather' – I don't care what you want to call it, the point is, you are killing yourself and I'm not going to keep lying for you!"

"You've been lying for me?" Sirius asked, taken aback.

"None of these people are idiots, Sirius. I fielded questions from Molly about why you wouldn't eat – I told her you weren't up to it yet, you were still feeling sick. I've been hearing from Poppy, asking me if I've seen you, if you look healthy. And Dumbledore, well, I'm sure he knows, because he's asked several times and he hasn't even seen you! And anyone who does see you would be able to tell in an instant."

Sirius felt his shoulders hunch a little in defeat. "I'm sorry. I…I didn't know."

"I thought I'd just give you some time to work through things. I thought maybe it would help if you didn't feel like everyone jumped every time you lost even a pound. I thought you'd bounce back. Silly me, you're worse than ever." Remus finally seemed to lose his steam, sinking wearily into a chair across the desk from Sirius, running one hand over his face.

"Rem, I'm not…I just…" Sirius faltered. "I'm sorry."

"I don't know what to do, Sirius," Remus said without looking at him. "I don't know how to help someone who doesn't want it. I clearly don't know what to say to help you, and you clearly don't want to listen." He stood up abruptly and met Sirius' eyes unblinkingly. "But I'll tell you this. I'm not going to stand by and watch you kill yourself. The next time anyone asks…I'm telling the truth."


	16. Chapter 15

**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter Fifteen**

He would have been better off in Slytherin. Perhaps, had he been in Slytherin, his parents would have loved him. Perhaps he would have never tried to embrace the courage of Gryffindor and instead remained entranced with the deception of Slytherin. It could have been, at this defining moment, one word different; he would have become someone else entirely.

Sirius knew, deep down, he embodied the qualities of a Slytherin. Though he wouldn't dare to question the Sorting Hat, he knew every trait was there. The ambition, determination, resourcefulness, but above all, the cunning. When it came down to it, he knew if he tried, he would fool them all. Which made him wonder why he wasn't doing it.

In the weeks before Christmas, there were moments of happiness. He sang carols, he laughed at Fred and George's antics between pangs of nostalgia and mourning for his best friend. He talked with Harry and lightly bickered with Hermione about Kreacher, and he took joy in Arthur's recovery. He wasn't faking those things.

He wasn't even pretending to eat, but rather actually forcing himself to do it. Remus' threat seemed to tip the balance of fear in favor of choking down half of each meal before he could admit defeat.

But the lies he did tell, the tale he was fabricating surrounded these events. Individual moments were true, but the whole of it was a lie. He was not happy. He could not maintain it. He was not eating. Not really. He was each of these things in a moment, but he knew when they all left he would return to his real life – to the empty, aching stomach to match the empty, aching heart and the mind he knew was devoid of his own thoughts but consumed by the guilt of his actions and the fear of his failure and the repetition of his parents rebukes playing over and over again.

Until it wasn't just his parents anymore. The disappointment on Remus' face, the anger and the fear, and the uncertainty. Molly's suspicious comments and accusations of "fits of sullenness," which he could not deny. The knowledge that Dumbledore thought he not only could not be of use, but was a liability even, with his history. And when Snape came to announce Harry's Occlumency lessons, the taunts, the shots that hit a little too close to home because he already knew he was useless, that he couldn't help Harry or the Order or anyone, and when he felt Harry's anxiety as he stood between the two of them, amidst the anger, fear, and resentment that had roiled and built over a lifetime and Sirius realized that Harry was trying to care for him, when he was the one meant to care for Harry – he knew those moments would haunt him long after they had all left and he was left alone again.

And because he was not as brave as he once had thought, because despite the fact that the hat had put him in Gryffindor for some reason he could not live up to, he fell back to the lies and the deceit and the mask he had worn for years because behind it all, he was ashamed of the things he hid beneath the laughing and joking, beneath the bravado and confidence, beneath the growling stomach and shimmering white bones.

* * *

><p>Sirius lounged in the corner of Buckbeak's room, idly tossing rats and watching with faint amusement as Buckbeak lunged to snatch them from the air. Buckbeak turned a large orange eye on Sirius as the stream of rats slowed.<p>

Sirius shook himself from his thoughts and tossed another rat. "Sorry," he muttered. Buckbeak crunched through the body of the rat sickeningly and cast a look at the door. Sirius held no illusions about Buckbeak; the hippogriff knew him startlingly well and he was certain Buckbeak understood that he was hiding.

"They're going home tomorrow." Sirius paused. Hogwarts was home? To Harry, he was sure it was true. Hogwarts was his home much more so than his muggle home, and, Sirius thought unhappily, much more a home than Grimmauld Place. Maybe, had things turned out differently, he would have a really home. Sirius might have had a house. He would at least still have had a flat, somewhere to live besides the house of his past. It would have been decorated with photos rather than heads, with memories instead of nightmares. Maybe it would have had a living room with a fireplace that was used for more than just the Floo. He and Harry would have sat near the fire and played chess and Gobstones. He would have shown Harry how they made the Marauder's Map, told him all of the pranks and antics. He would have made sure that Harry heard every memory of James and Lily.

But instead of a life raising James' son, of fulfilling his best friend's dying wish, he was trapped. First in Azkaban with nothing left but a singular certainty, then in the wilderness struggling for a scattered purpose, and now here, with no use at all.

* * *

><p>After taking Harry and the Weasleys back to Hogwarts, Remus returned to Grimmauld Place to find Sirius sitting silently on the steps. Sirius did not move when Remus walked in, save to cast his eyes upwards to meet Remus'.<p>

"They're at school. They're safe," Remus said. Sirius looked back at the floor without responding, so Remus continued. "Harry didn't want to leave you."

"He looks just like James, doesn't he?" Sirius said softly.

"He does," Remus agreed neutrally.

"Sounds just like him too."

"You could say that."

"Sometimes I almost think it's James walking around here. Like living in a memory." Sirius finally looked up, eyes dark and hollow. "Do you know that's what it was supposed to be like? Harry was supposed to live with me."

"I know," Remus said, kneeling in front of Sirius as his eyes dropped back to the floor. "It's hard for me, too."

"Do you remember that night, Remus?"

"Sirius, this isn't going to make anything better." Remus put a hand on Sirius' shoulder. "James has been gone a long time. I know he wanted you to raise Harry, but it's too late for that. You're doing everything you can to do what he wanted."

"Snape was right," Sirius whispered. "I'm supposed to protect him, but what the hell am I going to do from here? Harry is trying to protect me, and I'm kicking myself because I never should have let him think he needs to."

"Snape wasn't right. Harry knows he can come to you. He trusts you, Sirius," Remus insisted.

"I was supposed to take care of him! I never should have given him to Hagrid that night," Sirius said, eyes pleading.

"He's grown up fine. Don't dwell on it, that night. You can't change anything now, and thinking about it now will only make things worse."

Sirius gave only the slightest nod, gaze still pinned to the floor. Remus moved his hand down to Sirius' biceps, gently pulling him to his feet and leading him to the kitchen. Sirius collapsed gracelessly into a chair as Remus started a kettle for tea. Remus settled in across from Sirius. "What brought all this on?"

Sirius was silent for a long moment. "It just doesn't seem real that James and Lily are gone."

"It's been fourteen years," Remus said.

"Do you know how time passes in Azkaban?" Sirius whispered. Before Remus could begin to answer, Sirius continued. "It doesn't. I sat there for twelve years and nothing at all changed. I thought the same things every single day, lived the same moment over and over again. Every single day was the worst of my life and every tomorrow was exactly the same as every yesterday. Maybe it's been fourteen years…but it sure as hell might have just been yesterday."


	17. Chapter 16

**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter Sixteen**

It was all-consuming. Once he started, he could not stop. The thoughts poured every time he closed his eyes, every time he paused in his tasks for distraction, every time he failed to focus hard enough on anything else.

He dreamt of it every night, waking in a cold sweat, trembling, whole body aching every morning before the sun came up. And he would make himself a mug of strong coffee and sit in the kitchen, blanket wrapped around his shoulders and contemplate a piece of toast, staring at it until the bread got cold and stale enough that he choked on the first bite and threw the rest away.

Most days at least one Order member would stop buy and he would offer them lunch, which they would eat gratefully and he would pick at uncomfortably. He relayed a lot of messages, kept a lot of documents safe, and occasionally was commissioned to do some research. Remus was his most frequent visitor, but the Weasleys often came by and often brought him dinner. Tonks stopped in occasionally and regaled him with stories about her mother, his favorite cousin, and sometimes changed her appearance and acted things out.

But around all of this, he still had plenty of time for the memories, and at the end of every day, he crawled into bed and curled into a ball, eyes closed tight, trying to forget.

_He'd been out of St. Mungo's only a few weeks when the Potters went into hiding. James wanted Sirius as Secret Keeper despite it all, but Lily was more practical and Sirius was just trying to be realistic. _

_ "I'm going to be the first person they look for," he said, swirling the whiskey in his tumbler. "Snape will tell him, you know he will." _

_ "But Remus can't…his furry little problem, you know," James said. _

_ "What about Peter?" _

_ "You're joking, right?" James scoffed. _

_ "Exactly my point!" Sirius exclaimed. "No one will think of him." _

_ "It's a good idea, James," Lily said, resting a hand on his shoulder where he sat opposite Sirius. _

_ "And I can protect him," Sirius offered. "He'll go into hiding and I'll be the only one who knows where he is."_

_ "It…it makes sense," James said hesitantly, and Sirius nodded. _

_ "It might be your best bet." _

Because in all honesty, he couldn't handle it. He had been just out of the hospital, struggling to force himself to eat, still feeling the lingering weakness of his muscles, the shivers that still took over sometimes. Because no matter how much he wanted to be the Potters' Secret Keeper, he knew he couldn't. He wasn't strong enough.

And it was his own damn fault. Because if he hadn't been selfish, if he had listened, hadn't been so hell-bent on starving, if he had just been stronger, he would have been able to be the Secret Keeper. He would have protected them. And Lily and James would be alive. If it weren't for him.

* * *

><p><em>Sirius Black was one of the youngest people in this section of Azkaban. Most of the Death Eaters being rounded up were at least a few years older than him, most at least ten years older. Ministry members and shop owners and everyone imaginable, tossed into cells without trial. He knew many of them, suspected a few of them were as innocent as he was. If even he could be called innocent. <em>

_ His cell was tiny, barely large enough for him to lie down on the floor. It had no bed, just a worn blanket wadded in the corner. The floor was damp and dirty, tiny pebbles gritting under his shoes as he stepped inside and turned around to watch the iron door ratchet closed, leaving a couple of small holes he assumed were meant to be windows. On the other side of the cell was a gaping hole right at eye-level. He was thin enough he thought he could probably shimmy through if he had anything to use to climb up to the window, but peering out of the hole and feeling the burn of salt air in his eyes and the bite of damp wind on his cheeks, turning his eyes down at the surf slashed to ribbons between the jagged rocks and he knew any escape plan would only be a death wish in disguise. _

_ He spun in place, turning into Padfoot instantly, curling into one corner of the cell with his tail protecting his face from the chill. The wind that wound through his cell and the icy pit where the dementors had already sucked his heart dry. He closed his eyes against the sight, only to see the blank eyes staring at him, the just slightly too cold skin at his fingertips, the smoldering wreckage, and he opened his eyes and stared at the place where the wall of the cell met the floor, stared unblinkingly until his eyes were so dry he could barely scrape his lids over his eyes, because, given the option, he would rather see his own lifelessness than James'._

* * *

><p><em>He hadn't heard from Peter in a week. Peter was supposed to drop by tonight for dinner, but it was after nine and he had never shown up. The wind battered at the door and Sirius kept peering out the window to see if someone had been knocking. He felt uneasy, his empty stomach shifty queasily as he began to consider what could have happened and he finally couldn't take it. He strode to the fireplace in three steps, flung a pinch of silver powder into the empty grate and stated Peter's address. <em>

_ It was empty. Some of the clothes still present, but most missing. The knickknacks that rested on tables and in drawers were almost all strewn across the floor. And at the back door, thrown aside carelessly, a picture frame. Sirius stared down at it, feeling the nausea roiling in his belly. _

_ The four marauders, just a year ago, James and Sirius in the middle, arms about each other's shoulders. Sirius with his pin-like arm crooked about Remus' neck, pulling him close and forcing him to hunch, as though they were wrestling, the scars on Remus' face contorting in laughter. And on the other side of James was Peter, hands shoved in his pockets, mouth smiling but eyes cast nervously at James' laughing face, the space between them at once both almost unnoticeable and yet an impenetrable barrier. And right through the middle of that chasm was the gritty white line where the glass had broken when Peter had tossed aside his friends as though they were nothing more than a bit of parchment. _


	18. Chapter 17

**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter Seventeen**

"You're scaring me, Sirius."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Just…tell me what I can do." Remus chewed his lip uncertainly, shifted his weight as he and Sirius stood eye to eye.

"I don't know." Sirius wavered a little and dropped his gaze. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

Remus remained silent, looking at Sirius for a long moment. He wanted to assure Sirius that he was normal, that things would be okay, but if ever there was anything unnatural, it was anorexia. If ever there was something that could never quite be okay again, it was this.

"I don't know what anyone could do," Sirius said. "Maybe I'm just unfixable. We've been through this over and over again and I just can't seem to –" He stopped abruptly, turning away, balling up a fist and pressing it against his forehead, taking a few deep breaths.

"You're not unfixable," Remus protested, reaching to put his hand on Sirius' shoulder, but Sirius immediately shrugged him off, the birdlike bone dropping delicately from Remus' hand.

"I know it doesn't make sense," he said, turning back to Remus before sinking onto the sofa. "It's just…I can't stop myself. I keep trying, every day, but I can't make myself eat and it doesn't make any sense."

"I know," Remus said. "I know you're trying, but I don't understand why you can't."

Sirius drew his knees up to his chest. "I know we can't deal with this now. I just can't help it."

"I know you didn't choose to get sick," Remus said. Sirius nodded helplessly and rested his forehead on his knee.

"I've been thinking about that night. I dream about it, Moony."

"You know nothing good can come of that."

"I know it's making it worse," Sirius whispered. "I keep thinking if I had been stronger then, if I had been better than this, they'd be alive. And the worse I feel the harder it is now."

"You never could have known what was going to happen," Remus insisted. "You didn't choose to get sick then any more than you did now and I know you would have laid your life down for James and Lily in a second if it meant they would have lived."

Sirius nodded woodenly. "I would have. But it didn't make a difference."

"You've got to let this go, Sirius. You're killing yourself over something that happened fourteen years ago. I know the time doesn't make it any easier, but you have to know that this won't solve anything, even if it were your fault." Remus dropped onto the couch next to Sirius. "Listen. I've talked to Dumbledore. About your…about this. He's trying to figure out what to do."

Sirius nodded only slightly, and other than that gave no real reaction. And that scared Remus more than anything else. Because he had expected Sirius to get mad, to scream and throw a fit and say he was fine. But Sirius accepting someone else's ideas of what his life should be, Sirius willing to accept that he was in over his head and ready to be bailed out, Sirius willing to admit that he was sick…if Sirius was already to that point, Remus feared he may be beyond saving.

* * *

><p>He could not let it go. The guilt he had long since buried in his cell in Azkaban, the guilt he had tried to tell himself had been erased by twelve long years of feeling nothing but that overwhelming grief, the guilt he had always feared had long since returned, in an all-consuming anxiety that rendered him almost unable to function. Because the more he panicked, the more he failed to eat, and the failure to eat made him weak, made him just as he used to be when he failed to help the Potters, when he allowed his own shortcomings to kill his best friends, his only family. And the guilt overwhelmed him and soon he was spending almost the entire day sitting and staring at a plate of food, the thought of eating it too difficult and the thought of walking away and admitting to himself that he could not eat just as impossible. And he sat and breathed slowly and calmly while his thoughts raged back and forth, the demons screeching until it finally faded to simply a low hum of wordless emotion that built in his chest and stomach, spreading to his extremities like the heat of liquor, leaving the pins and needles numbness of terror.<p>

He was as thin as he could ever remember being. Standing before the full length mirror of the bathroom in only his underwear, he ran spiderlike hands across the web of bones and veins that shivering just under transparent skin. The key-shaped clavicles, locking tight the cage of ribs over his heart. He tapped each finger on each rib, feeling more than hearing the hollow echo under each. The bulge of each vertebra, like spikes lining his back, the hinge of the cage. Hipbones coming to razor-thin edges in the front. He ran his fingers along them, almost feeling the burst of blood vessels against the blade of bone. He watched his pulse jump at his throat and wrists. The indent between the small bulge of his biceps when he flexed and the bone of his upper arms where the skin clung to every empty space.

It was ugly and it scared him. He hated it. Every single inch. From the grey shadow beneath each rib to the sallow, bloodless fingertips, to the blue bruises on his hips from where he slept. He hid from it under layers and layers of clothes, avoided mirrors and promised himself he'd get better. But he didn't.

He had been dizzy for what felt like years. The lightheadedness of starvation had long since become levelheadedness and anything else felt heavy. His body felt heavy, though it was light, and some nights it took all the energy he had to drag himself up the stairs, fighting gravity with every step that sent jarring impact up his spine.

But he told himself he would be okay. Because if nothing else, it took his mind off the nightmares, off the visions that plagued him well into the day, of James' face devoid of life, of Lily's crumpled body. Because every time he closed his eyes and saw James staring back at him, a layer of dust coating his pupils, he felt the hollow ache of his stomach and reminded himself that he deserved the pain, that someday, it would be enough, that someday his suffering would somehow make them even and he would not have to be punished anymore. And he would open his eyes and look at the bones and tell himself that someday nothing, not even guilt, could weigh him down.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note: <strong>Hey, guys. I could really use some reviews. I'd love to hear from you about what you expect to happen or things you'd like to see, or ways I can improve. I need a little encouragement. :) Thanks!


	19. Chapter 18

__**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter Eighteen**

_The sharp displacement of silence tore through Sirius' body as his motorcycle landed heavily in the streets of Godric's Hollow. Wind wound bitterly between the crooked lines of streets, a low droning wail as it sliced through the fabric of his robes, chilling him with foreboding and fear. _

_ Drawing his cloak closer, Sirius rushed as quickly as utter silence allowed, ducking through back alleys, between homes, the ground frozen beneath his feet. The Potters lived not far from here, but he never dared apparate closer than this, lest he draw attention to the home that ought appear abandoned. _

_ Peering cautiously around the final corner before the long, open space of the street, Sirius stood in shock for only a single second before sprinting carelessly from hiding because there was nothing left to fear._

* * *

><p>The house loomed above him in every moment he dared close his eyes. It leaned in closer, calling and cajoling.<p>

The Potters' house had not been touched since that night, he knew. It was, now, almost a sort of monument. A war definitively won, but at a dreadful price. People went there, sometimes to mourn but most often to celebrate, because to them, the results were worth the cost.

He could remember the look of it that night more clearly than the day he was sorted at Hogwarts, more than the first Quidditch match he'd ever won, more than the moment he'd heard his brother was dead, or the day he was locked away in Azkaban.

But it called to him, and he had no choice. He'd traveled farther, harder, rougher before. It was his turn to pay tribute, to offer his counter to the celebration.

Because for all the good that came from that night, the cost was devastating, overwhelming, and someone needed to mourn it more than celebrate it.

A Disillusionment charm, quick apparition, and then a short slog through snow and slush and it was his turn to recognize the inevitable carnage of extremes meeting on either end of a wand.

* * *

><p><em>Smoldering shingles rotted into the thawed dirt at an accelerated speed, while occasional bits of rubble still spewed from the gaping hole in the roof which exhaled plumes like the mouth of a smoker. Sharp glints of glass remained embedded at the edges of the windows, the rest crushed to sand amidst the malingering tendrils of smoke crawling across the ground. The sky above was the sickly green of the calm before a storm, or the butchery just after – the absorbed jade of the killing curse. <em>

Sirius crept up the decrepit front steps, the boards soggy and sagging under his light tread, and once through the front door he removed the Disillusionment charm, needing, for once, to just be here.

_The keyhole not merely unlocked but blown to pieces, the metal still hot to his touch at the blackened edges as he pushed the door open and stepped inside. The carpet on which he had romped as Padfoot, Harry squealing with delight as he tugged none too gently at his shaggy fur, edges singed but otherwise intact. _

He kicked aside a thick blanket of snow to find the mildewed carpet, pattern almost entirely eaten away by mould.

_He stepped over the obstacles on the stairs, scarcely looking at them, dodging occasional holes where the steps had been knocked out like teeth. The hallway groaned under his slight weight, and he kept to the edges close to the walls, brushing against framed photographs that smiled unseeingly and waved unknowingly at a future they would never embody._

The upstairs was even less stable than it had been, and he tested carefully every step as he walked into what had been Harry's room.

_Her body lay in a graceless heap, legs crumpled under her, arms outstretched. One hand formed a loose fist, as though Lily had taken to the idea of fighting back tooth and nail, only to remember wands have a long range. The other rested innocently open, palm up, and a shard of glass was embedded deep and bloodless, after death, when the pictures were blown off the walls, and in the edge of the melted glass was the shiny photo paper, James' face winking over and over again, just a scrap the shape of half a heart. Her hair flowed in every direction, the fire-red silk covering her whole face but for one eye, open in a hideous wink of her own._

* * *

><p><em>The crescendo of his heart pounding in his ears, of his breath rushing through his lungs and back out, slowly gave way to the keening wail and he tore his eyes from Lily to stare into her eyes, alive and drenched in large, perfect baby tears. Harry gasped for breath between screams and screeched the muddled syllables Sirius knew to be his own name. He crossed the room purposefully, walking around Lily's sprawl, and pulled Harry from the crib, cradling the baby against his chest and burying his face in the soft down of that black hair. He felt Harry's tears, scalding against his neck, slowly ease up, until all that remained was the occasional hiccup and sigh as Harry accepted Sirius' silence and shock as a comforting, knowledgeable adult presence. <em>

_ Sirius would never know how long he stood there, rocking back and forth, holding Harry tight to his body, murmuring nonsense into his hair, before Hagrid appeared, tears the size of marbles raining down his cheeks and turning his beard into a sad, sodden mess. Hagrid gently scooped Harry from Sirius' arms just as Sirius' knees buckled and he sank to the floor, shaking so hard his teeth clacked together. _

_ "I'm okay, Hagrid, give him here," Sirius finally said, dragging himself to his feet and reaching for Harry. _

_ Hagrid shook his head. "'m s'posed ter take him ter Dumbledore," he said gruffly. _

_ "I'm his godfather," Sirius said. "He's supposed to live with me." _

_ Hagrid looked at him sympathetically, but did not relinquish his hold on the baby. "Dumbledore said ter bring him ter Little Whinging, and tha's what I'm gon' ter do." _

_ "But Hagrid," Sirius began, and then stopped, looking at the way his arms trembled, the skin that still was a little too tight on his frame, and he knew that he could no more take care of Harry than he could himself. And there was something else left to do, too, that he knew no one else would ever realize needed doing, and it couldn't be done while caring for a baby. _

_ "Okay," he said abruptly. "And look, you can take my motorcycle to get him there. I won't need it anymore."_

* * *

><p>Sirius sank to his knees in the snow that had accumulated on the rotting wood, feeling the tiny crystals compact into ice under him, the damp slush immediately soaking through his cloak and robes. He crawled forward on bare hands that burned with cold, to the crib where Harry had stood, clinging to the bars, screaming just to not be alone in the silence.<p>

He felt, more than heard, the crack and splinter of the wood, the boards exposed to fourteen years of muggy summers and snowy winters giving way under him. He tumbled through the soft timber, landing in a heap on the floor below, rolling painfully off the stack of wood he had landed on, feeling the snow pack itself into every inch of his clothing.

He lay still for a long moment, looking up at the white sky through the hole he had just created in the floor of Harry's room, chest rising and falling ever slower, until the pain eased away and the cold of shock settled in. He cast his eyes over to where he could just see the foot of the staircase through the doorway, and he forced himself to crawl towards it.

_After Hagrid left, he slowly made his way back down the stairs and turned back to gaze at the obstacle he had refused to acknowledge. _

_ James lay spread-eagle across the staircase, body sunken into the steps where the force of the blast had knocked him through the boards. His arms were out to the sides, palms up and open in what Sirius knew must have been a defensive gesture before he was hit, and what now read as openness to the sky above him. Hiss head tilted back, eyes sightlessly open wide in understanding, acceptance, heroism, gazing straight up through the hole in the roof, straight to the heavens, arms open wide, ready to embrace the death he had known would come. _

_ Sirius dropped to his knees awkwardly on the steps, tugged James toward him. James' torso nestled against Sirius' chest, twisting away from his legs in a posture impossible to the living. He rested his cheek in James' hair, feeling the skin that was only slightly colder than his own. He choked back a sob, knowing full well he was not capable of tears. He felt them build in his throat, tasted them bitter and metallic like blood, but they never moved to his eyes. _

_ It was almost a little strange, he thought idly, as he clung to James. Neither of them had ever been terribly inclined to hug or touch each other outside of occasional punches on the shoulder and other similar endearments. He could count on one hand the number of times they'd been in close contact like this, but only one really stuck out in his mind. _

_ It was only a couple months ago, just before Sirius entered St. Mungo's. He'd collapsed, unable to stop shaking, and it had escalated into a panic attack because he knew it was all over and he was caught. He was hyperventilating, shaking, still on the floor of his own flat, and James dropped to his knees and pulled Sirius into his arms, resting his chin on the top of Sirius' head. And it was strange but comforting and he had no idea what James was murmuring for quite a while, but when he finally calmed down, he realized James was reciting one of Harry's books and Sirius realized that James had grown up while he had stayed the same. _

He found the broken boards in the shape of James' body. Slowly, he dragged himself up, turned and put his back against the broken boards, into the pocket of snow. His arms rested across one step, palms open and up, fingers waxy and white with cold. Head tilted back, resting against the same step James' had, staring up into the sky. The snow around him filled the extra space because James had been an adult when he died, but Sirius' body was starved down to being the size of a child. Because James had been ready to die a hero, ready to save his family, but Sirius was ready just to die without the illusion of heroism, self-sacrifice, or value. He felt the cold seep into his veins, the dull ache before the void.

Sirius Black breathed deep, closed his eyes, and in the moments just before unconsciousness, he saw a familiar figure ready to guide him home.


	20. Chapter 19

**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter Nineteen**

Sirius Black's skin was an ivory shade of white, his lips pale blue, hair and clothes soaked through with melted snow. He was rumpled, disheveled, dusted in snow, and his chest scarcely moved with each breath.

Severus Snape knelt next to Black's prone form, cursing everything he could think of that had led him to this moment, which included Dumbledore's eerie premonitions, Remus Lupin's unavailability, his own stupidity for ever falling in love and allowing himself to be put in this position, and many other things, not least of which was Black himself for being a self-destructive git who didn't give a flying fuck about anyone else's plans on what might have been a perfectly pleasant weekend.

Severus, never having been described by anyone as being muscular and thusly never having been in this position before, awkwardly slipped his arms under Black's still form, one behind his shoulders and the other under his knees, planning to scoop him up at least somewhat gently. However, despite the fact that Black weighed next to nothing, even a miniscule human form is a cumbersome burden, and Severus quickly realized that this would not work. Deciding then, on the less elegant approach, he grabbed Black under the arms and hauled him to a somewhat slumped sitting position against his own chest, then dragged them both to standing, before stumblingly turning on the spot to disapparate.

He almost lost his balance on the stoop of 12 Grimmauld place as they landed precariously, with Black's limp form threatening to slide right down the steps. Severus threw most of his weight backwards, crashing unceremoniously through the front door, barely managing to catch himself on the door knob, while allowing Black to land in a heap on the floor. Severus slammed the door behind them, quickly silenced the paintings, then deciding his days of weightlifting were over, levitated Black up the stairs.

Black was beginning to come to, mumbling and moving his head slightly, even groaning slightly when Severus bumped him sharply into the edge of the doorway. In the bathroom, Severus deposited a semiconscious Sirius Black on the floor and began to run a warm bath, before looking hesitatingly at Black once more.

His clothes were soaked through and refrozen, and as Severus knelt next to Black and carefully placed two fingertips against Black's cheek, he found the skin to be absolutely ice cold. Looking away as much as possible, Snape tugged off Black's cloak, robes, and several layers of clothing under that, leaving him simply in faded boxers, as Snape had long since surpassed the end of what he would willingly do for anyone, let alone Sirius Black.

Even the sparing glances Severus allowed himself showed that this body was severely malnourished. The ribs visibly, and only very slightly, shifted with every breath, stretching taut skin even a bit farther. The stomach was concave between the jut of ribs and hipbones, and the arms and legs were knobby and sinewy, showing muscles, tendons and joints with disgusting clarity.

Snape waved his wand once more, and with a bit more finesse than before, levitated the body into the tub, taking care to leave Black's head above water. He was moving more now, the water rippling and thankfully obscuring the uncomfortably intimate view.

"Black?" Severus demanded. "Black, wake up. For God's sake, I don't have all day."

Dark eyes snapped open and cast around blearily before fixating on him. Beginning to shiver, Black looked down at his exposed body, before glancing back up at Snape, eyes wide. "What –?" he croaked.

"Kingsley Shacklebolt came here looking for you, and you were gone," Severus said, voice low and venomous with frustration. "Luckily for you, Dumbledore had a guess as to where you had gone. And unfortunately for me, no one else could spare a moment to keep you from offing yourself."

Black curled into a tight ball in the water, still shivering violently, but already the blue tinge to his lips was receding.

"What the hell are you playing at, Black?" Severus hissed, angrily. "Do you think it's fun to have me at your beck and call? Because I can guarantee that this is the last time I'll be coming after you."

Black shook his head, eyes downcast, vertebrae protruding from his back. "I didn't ask you to save me," he snapped.

"I'm only going to say this once, Black, so listen carefully. Anyone can see what you're doing with this –" he gestured loosely at the emaciated body before him before locking his eyes back on Black's. "Maybe you're sick of being useless in this war or maybe you're just looking for attention, or maybe you are that fucked up, but here's a thought you clearly haven't had yet: this isn't about you. So get your shit together and stop acting like a petulant child."

Severus stood up and walked to the door, intending to leave, but paused. Eyes locked straight ahead, he said "You've been my enemy since we were eleven years old. But to anyone looking at you now, I look like a fool for considering you a threat. Get it together, Black, and stop embarrassing me. You're better than this."

* * *

><p>Remus nearly slammed straight into Snape in the front hallway of Grimmauld place as he sprinted up the stairs.<p>

"Is he okay?" he demanded, already breathless. "Where is he?"

"He's fine. Upstairs, in the bath to warm up," Snape said flatly.

"Thank you, Severus," Remus rambled. "I know you didn't have to go out there, and I just want to –"

"He's a wreck, Lupin, and he's a liability. Anyone could have found him out there."

"I'm sorry," Remus began. "He's just –"

"No excuses," Snape snapped. "Warm him up, talk to him, and for God's sake, get some food in him. I don't care what it is you think he's going through, none of it is worth losing this war." He turned on his heel and stormed out of the front door before Remus could formulate a word.

Shaking it off, Remus rushed upstairs, pushing open the door to Sirius' room to find him bundled in what appeared to be at least three layers of clothing, still shivering uncontrollably. Silently, Remus stepped forward, pulling the comforter from Sirius' bed and wrapping it around him tightly, before leading him downstairs and depositing him at the kitchen table. He pulled out pots and pans and began to cook, all without a word.

"Rem, I saw it, I saw the house," Sirius whispered.

Remus slammed a pan onto the stove and didn't speak.

"You were right, Rem, I shouldn't have gone there. It was awful" Remus began chopping carrots, the knife making a satisfying thwack with each swing. "Moony…" he heard in a faint whisper.

He turned around then, to find Sirius hunched in his blankets, eyes wide and wet, unblinkingly staring at him, his face for once an unmasked visage of abject misery. Remus dropped the knife and went over to Sirius, wordlessly pulling him close, feeling Sirius' chin notch over his shoulder, layers of fabric collapsing and folding in his arms as he held his friend tightly.

Finally, he pulled away, gently pushing Sirius' hair from his face, before turning back to the stove. After a few minutes of silence, Remus placed a large bowl of soup in front of Sirius, before settling into the chair next to him, one hand resting lightly on Sirius' back, just to remind both of them that they were still there.

"Tell me all about it."


	21. Chapter 20

**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter Twenty**

The cold ached in his bones, numbing him from the inside out. Humiliation clearly bested him, and he got out of the bath as soon as he regained enough feeling in his limbs to do so, despite the painful tremors and the chattering teeth. Bundled in clothes and blankets downstairs, he was not any warmer, despite his place in front of the fire, and so when Remus placed the bowl of soup in front of him, he ate.

There was a surreal quality to all of it. Having known he would never sit in this kitchen again, never taste a warm meal again, never hear the tiny echo of his own voice as he rambled nonsensically, never feel Remus rubbing his shoulder soothingly through layers of fabric, having known all these things would not happen, and then experiencing them once more was both confusing and uncomfortably real. Every sensation shocked him and it stung – the world was too close to a man who had kept it all at arm's length for most of his life. The numbness of starvation was giving way to stomach partially full of hot soup and a world that might reach out and grab him at any moment from any direction, and he would be caught unawares.

When he stammered that he couldn't eat anymore, Remus frowned worriedly, but helped Sirius gather the blankets around his shoulders and stumble up the stairs. Sirius moved to collapse onto his bed, still shivering, painfully aware of the fatigue of his muscles and the blue tinge to his fingertips and the weakness of his legs beneath him. But Remus quickly redirected Sirius to a chair and stripped the sheets off the bed.

"Do you have clean sheets somewhere?" he asked as he balled up what apparently were dirty sheets. Sirius stared at him, trying to imagine where clean sheets would be kept and wondering if he had ever changed his own sheets and wondering why on earth Kreacher hadn't done so on his own and he was still wondering when Remus sighed and disappeared, returning relatively quickly with a set of folded sheets. A wave of his wand made the bed neatly and Sirius took his cue to collapse on it, curling into a tight ball. Remus handed Sirius a hot water bottle, and Sirius hugged it to his chest, willing himself to stop shaking.

Remus dropped into the desk chair, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, and hesitated.

"I know it was stupid, Moony," Sirius whispered. "You don't have to…I mean, I just…I know."

Remus nodded sadly. "I'm going to be staying here for a few days. Just to help out with…things."

Sirius looked away. "Okay."

"It's just for a little while. Just until…"

"Until?"

"Dumbledore wants to talk to you. He can't get away yet, but he expects the opportunity will present itself soon."

"So you're keeping an eye on me until he shows up." Sirius sighed.

"I just want to help, Sirius. That's all any of us wants."

"Okay." Sirius couldn't meet his eyes.

"Don't you want help?" Remus asked, softly.

Sirius pulled the blankets over his head and didn't answer.

* * *

><p>In the end, Remus only had to stay at Grimmauld Place for a week. It was only a week before the event which, as far as Remus could tell, was truly the signal of all hell breaking loose at Hogwarts. Dumbledore seemed pretty calm about the entire matter, but then Dumbledore never did seem to panic about much of anything.<p>

Regardless, Remus lived with Sirius for exactly one week until Dumbledore dropped in to see them, and in that time, he determined that Sirius Black was even harder to live with than the werewolves.

There was an anxiety about Grimmauld Place, a lingering sense that the worst was yet to come. It was irrational, yet Remus crept about the house in near silence, in the hopes that he would not awaken whatever this "worst" might be. In the dead of night, he could hear the house, the groans of old wood, the whispered shriek of wind between battered boards, the static sound of dust settling. It was downright eerie.

But worst of all was Sirius himself. Remus hated himself for thinking it, but despite the aggression, filth and general unpredictability of the werewolves, Sirius was a worse roommate by far. He was not any of those things, but somehow he was even more fearsome.

Anorexia is terrifying. Living makes perfect sense, and dying makes perfect sense. Suicide even makes sense, in its own way. But to feel enough pain to want to die, to feel that there is only one way out, and then to spend years slowly working toward it? To suffer more just to eventually ease the suffering?

There was no remaining doubt that Sirius Black wanted to die. Through adolescence and their early adulthood, Remus had believed that Sirius was just sick. He was struggling; he did not have appropriate coping mechanisms. He was starving, but he didn't honestly want to die. In the end, he would recognize what he was doing and turn it around. And Sirius had been amenable to that belief. He had entered treatment. He had worked towards getting well. He ate and he talked about his feelings and he did what everyone else did – he got through it.

But he wasn't through it. And this latest stunt had left no question – Sirius wasn't asking for help. He wasn't accepting help. He was trying, desperately, to die. And it made Remus wonder if Sirius had ever been better. Maybe at one point or another, he had weighed more, but Remus doubted he had ever really been healthy.

Sirius was not currently pursuing death – at least, not any more actively than he had for most of his life. Remus made them both meals and Sirius ate. Not a lot, but it was certainly more. He talked to Remus and seemed almost happy, but Remus knew it wouldn't last. It never did.

Over time, Remus realized, he could no longer distinguish his friend from his disease. Anorexia had become Sirius, and Sirius had become anorexia. And that was, perhaps, the most terrifying aspect of all. That what had originally started, Remus assumed, as a minor diet, or even just an unconscious lack of appetite in a stressful situation, had escalated to the point of dictating personality, physicality, and mentality. That Sirius, who had once been funny, lively, full of bravado and false overconfidence, was reduced to a skeleton, to fear and anxiety and a set of behaviors that both characterized and fed his disease.

After a week, though Sirius had been perfectly pleasant and even occasionally let Remus win at Gobstones, Remus realized he was looking forward to leaving Grimmauld Place. He hated himself for it, but just as he could no longer delude himself into believing Sirius didn't want to die, he could no longer convince himself that he was not watching his best friend die. Most of what Sirius had once been had died years ago, and what was left was dwindling quickly. And for all his determination and strength, Remus knew he could not stand to lose Sirius.

So when Albus Dumbledore, in robes of midnight blue, eyes hauntingly lacking their usual twinkle, spun into existence in the roaring emerald fire of Grimmauld Place, peering through his half-moon spectacles at the skeletal frame before him and declaring a need for conversation, Remus excused himself. He went upstairs and picked up his suitcase, which was packed and waiting, and walked out the front door without a goodbye.

He had said enough of those already.


	22. Chapter 21

**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter Twenty-One**

Dumbledore surveyed Sirius for a very long moment after Remus excused himself, gaze roaming up and down before meeting Sirius' eyes in an uncomfortably insightful stare. Sirius forced himself to maintain the eye contact, though he could almost feel Dumbledore crawl into his brain and start poking around. "Would you like some tea?" he asked, in a carefully controlled, calm tone.

"Tea would be marvelous." Dumbledore's mouth smiled but the lines around his eyes did not twitch even slightly as he continued peering into Sirius' soul.

Sirius spun around to the stove, almost sighing in relief as he heard Dumbledore's robes sweep across the floor and the scuff of a chair as the older man sank into a chair and, presumably, stopped staring. Sirius started a kettle to boil on the stove, rather than by wand, avoiding the conversation in any way he could. He shuffled around in the pantry, newly stocked by Remus this week, to find tea.

In less than five minutes, the kettle had whistled, the tea was steeping, and Sirius was folded into his own chair, one hand lazily tracing patterns in a bit of spilled water.

Dumbledore took a cautious sip, then set his cup down, proclaiming the tea as "quite good, thank you," before fixing his gaze once again on Sirius.

"Remus told me you've…resigned as headmaster?" Sirius snuck a quick glance through his long hair at Dumbledore, before returning to pushing water around the polished wood.

"For the time being, it seems to be the best course of action. I doubt it will be permanent," Dumbledore replied, taking another sip of tea.

"What about Harry?"

"There are plenty of people at the school to watch out for him. He's in good hands right now, I believe, and there are many other things I must attend to until my return to Hogwarts." Dumbledore leveled him with that stare once more. "Not the least of which is you."

Sirius shifted uncomfortably and didn't say anything, staring down into his tea.

"I'm not quite certain what to do," said Dumbledore thoughtfully, and Sirius risked a glance up to see the older man looking bemused. "I must admit, it's not a situation I find myself in often." Sirius almost wanted to laugh, but the gravity of the situation put a damper on things, and he managed a half smile.

"Obviously professional treatment is not an option. The closest we could get is Poppy, and she has assured me that you need far more than she could offer." Dumbledore gave him that look again, pondering him. "But clearly recent events are indicating that we cannot avoid this issue altogether."

He wanted to leave. He wanted to turn around and walk away and pretend this was not happening. He wanted to disappear. He wanted to not see disappointment and confusion and frustration. He wanted to be more help than harm, more virtue than iniquity. But he could not, did not, and was not. Just as always.

Somehow sensing Sirius' uneasiness, perhaps due to the fact that Sirius had stared downward for five full minutes, Dumbledore paused, cleared his throat, and changed the subject somewhat.

"Remus mentioned that you feel useless," he said simply. Sirius nodded almost imperceptibly, feeling once again like a student under scrutiny in Dumbledore's office.

"Ah, the plight of humanity," Dumbledore mused softly, and Sirius glanced up, perplexed. "So often we question our purpose in existence and yearn for something more, as though there is more than just this life."

"And you think there's not?" Sirius countered.

"Quite the contrary. But does the possibility of an afterlife make the current reality any less potent?"

Sirius paused for a long moment. "An afterlife makes this life more important and less bearable. If I'm being judged every minute...I'd better just give up now."

"Being judged for this life is precisely why you should not give up now," Dumbledore said sharply. Sirius raised his eyebrows and then frowned.

"I've already screwed up enough. What am I going to do stuck in this house that's going to help anything?"

"What good would your death do?" Dumbledore questioned. When Sirius declined to answer, Dumbledore continued. "Think what it will do to Harry if you die now, if you die in this way. You are the closest thing to a parent he has, and you would willfully leave him?"

"I'm not his dad," Sirius said softly, wavering.

"You are as close as he'll ever get. If you kill yourself, you're leaving him to face the war alone. He'll know you chose to leave him. We can't afford for him to lose that hope."

Sirius chewed his lip, thinking of Harry and what they had both lost. But where Sirius had a decade of memories of Lily and James, Harry didn't have even one. And where Sirius had not had love growing up, having to find it later, Harry had also – and Sirius had to keep offering it. He owed that to Harry, at least.

Dumbledore stood up abruptly, robes swirling. "Your very existence is useful, Sirius. That ought to be purpose enough for anyone."

Sirius nodded, but Dumbledore had already turned away, the fire roaring green around him as he disappeared.

A long moment after the green tinge had given way to the orange glow of flames, Sirius stood up and made his way to the pantry, shuffling things around until he found what he needed. He made himself a somewhat small peanut butter sandwich and sat at the table. He took one small bite at a time, with each one thinking of Harry, until, over a half hour later, all that was left on the plate were crumbs.

* * *

><p>Eating is the most natural thing in the world. There's an urgency to hunger, this constant nagging feeling of a chore left undone, a responsibility shirked, and it is such a simple thing to sit down and eat until the feeling is gone, until the body is satisfied and the responsibility has been borne.<p>

He sat down three times a day and ate. Put the food in his mouth and chewed, chewed, chewed, until he couldn't stand the feeling and he forced himself to swallow and then he dropped the fork on the plate and said he couldn't do this and then he remembered Harry and picked it up again. Because everyone does this and this is easy and natural and normal, and this is what people do. Even fuckups like Sirius Black. Everyone. It is human and good and normal and there's no reason to be upset.

He could scarcely remember the start of all of this. For as long as he could remember, he was hungry. He could not define the line when it moved from punishment from his parents to a self-imposed constant state. When hunger stopped being a pain and a need and started being a comfort. He was broken, wrong, and he knew it, he was not good enough, and the hunger reminded him that he was taking care of it, that he was bearing his punishment and then he would not feel the guilt and the fear and the evil he suspected was hiding deep within him.

Eating should not be emotional. It is mechanical, simple, jaw goes up down food goes down up the throat when he can't stand it anymore.

He promised himself he would be better, for Harry. And he was. Three times a day, he ate. But breakfast was hard to fit in because he didn't often wake up that early. But lunch and dinner were very reasonable. But he was so busy during the day, reading and researching for the Order, entertaining other members, lunch was hard to fit in. So he ate dinner, and that was good. But he was so exhausted by the end of the day, he didn't feel like cooking, and the cold food didn't look good, and everything was going bad and he couldn't go buy more because he was a fugitive. And he'd choke down some unappetizing disaster of a meal and go to bed, dreading the next day, but if the extent of his value to the war to save the world was to not die, he'd better put some effort into it, and so he woke up the next day and kept being alive, kept eating dinner, and kept telling himself he was better, and better than that, that he was alive.


	23. Chapter 22

**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter Twenty-Two**

Guilt is the motivation of the masses. More than money or power or sex, because guilt affects the ability to live with yourself, drags out your worst moments in the dark of night, in the doubt-ridden sleepless hours. More than the pain of watching a man's slow suicide was the guilt of not watching, the guilt of living in denial during the day and living in the denied during the night.

It took a month of sleepless nights for Remus to admit that living in fear was better than living in guilt and he walked through the front door of Grimmauld Place to ask Sirius if he could stay once more. He found Sirius in the study, folded into a winged armchair, perusing an absurdly heavy volume. Hesitatingly, he asked if he could stay and Sirius broke into a huge smile, rambled ecstatically and rushed to make up Remus' room once more. And then he offered Remus dinner and while they ate he talked about his conversation with Dumbledore and how he had been doing so much better and he was so busy talking that he only ate about four bites through all of dinner. And as Sirius whisked their plates away, his still completely full, Remus wanted to say that clearly Dumbledore's manipulation was not working, that Sirius was not better and not eating. But he held his tongue because just outside these walls there was a war being waged, peoples dividing and dying, evil marching and children growing up in fear, and for at least this moment, they could pretend the darkness was outside these walls, that it did not begin, as it always does, in the depths of the soul.

* * *

><p>Remus pushed himself up from the floor, dusting off his robes and moving to the sink to wash his hands. Sirius watched him do so, remaining on the floor, legs folded under him.<p>

"I never thought," Sirius said softly, "that we would have to defend James to Harry."

"Harry wants to think his parents were perfect – he idealizes them. To find out they weren't, in the way that he did…that had to be hard." Remus frowned at Sirius. "Are you going to stay on the floor?"

"It occurs to me," Sirius replied, standing and brushing off his own clothes, "that, considering what we actually use a fireplace for, someone might have thought to put it somewhere other than the floor." He flopped into a chair and winced as the hard wood impacted his bones. "You don't think…do you think he idealizes us, too?"

"Less so, I would imagine," Remus mused. "He's actually spent some time with us."

"Well, obviously he knows you're annoying and pretentious, but how could he help thinking that I'm wonderful?" Sirius flashed Remus a smile.

Remus took another bite of his meal, now cold from the wait while they talked to Harry. "Well. He has a working knowledge of us, obviously. But I would imagine a lot of your communication is limited to talking about the war and about Harry, rather than about you?"

"Yeah, I don't…there's not a lot to tell about me," Sirius mumbled.

"He's not sitting around thinking about your flaws, if that's what you're worried about," Remus said, standing up to clear his plate.

"I wasn't," Sirius insisted. "It's just…"

"What?" Remus turned around and met Sirius' eyes.

"I don't want Harry to know about…about me being sick. Not back when we were kids, or any of it. I mean…" He trailed off, while Remus watched him thoughtfully. Finally, unable to meet Remus' eyes, he continued. "He would never look at me the same way again. He'd always be looking to see if I looked ill, and I don't want him to worry. I'm better now, so there's no reason for him to know. It's…" Weak, he wanted to say. But then Remus would say there was nothing to be ashamed of, it was an illness and nothing more, and Harry would still love him, but Sirius had seen the way things changed, the way they were always looking for bones, and Harry had enough to think about.

Remus started to speak, hesitated, and stopped. He nodded mutely and turned away, and, before Sirius could ask what it was, he muttered "okay," and strode up the stairs.

* * *

><p>He trembled. Not the violent shivering of cold, of muscles jerking to and fro to produce heat, but the gentle wavering of weakness settling into his bones. Though months had passed and summer approached, the cold of hypothermia had never ebbed, ice still grinding in his joints. He struggled through it, pushing himself up and forcing himself to work. He had given orders that Kreacher should begin priming the rooms, as he assumed the Weasleys and Harry would be back in due time. He himself cleaned the rest of the house, telling Remus that he had nothing better to do and it was the way he was used to handling things. He beat the dust from the curtains, swept, polished, scrubbed. It was tiring work, physically exhausting, but it allowed him to spend hours on end without thinking, a luxury he was rarely afforded.<p>

But the weakness of his body was slowly overtaking the strength of his will, and it was exactly this that left him, one afternoon, gasping for breath, the cold damp of the floor seeping through his clothes. He felt the intensity of the shaking ratchet up as chill and cachexy coalesced, his body quickly careening towards chaos. He dragged himself to standing, trying desperately to escape the cold stone of the floor, but his legs collapsed and he crumpled, flinging out an arm to grab the table, but his arm could no more hold him than could his legs and he lay in a heap on the floor, face pressed against the finely rough surface of the tone. He felt his chest beat against the stone with every wheezing breath, felt the bruises welling up, his fingers digging into the fabric over his chest. He curled in on himself, blinking the dark spots from his vision.

Hands grabbed at him, rolled him over, caught his hand.

"I don't know, I don't…I can't…" Sirius stammered. Remus' fingers found Sirius' wrist, pressing with uncomfortable force to find the pulse.

"It's slowing down now," Remus said finally. He dropped Sirius' arm. "Here, let's get you off the floor." He mostly lifted Sirius into a chair, Sirius' legs stumbling along a half step behind his body. Once he was in the chair, Sirius braced himself against the table, gratefully sipping the glass of water Remus had conjured, as Remus knelt in front of him.

"I don't know what happened," Sirius said. "I was just…" he faltered and then just stopped. "I don't know why."

"Sirius, we need to talk," Remus said. He drew up his own chair and fixed Sirius with an unwavering gaze. "I didn't want to have to say anything. I was hoping you really would get better, but you aren't."

"What do you mean?" Sirius protested. "I've been eating, I have."

"You're eating, Sirius, but not enough. I know it's more than you're used to, but your body can't…it's not enough."

Sirius paused for a long moment. He thought of all the meals, all the fear, every bite that he told himself was for Harry, every bite that had made him hate himself just a little more, and he thought of all the times it was too hard, when he hated himself too much, when he couldn't believe that he mattered even to Harry, not enough to be worth the fear and the anxiety and the pain and the eating. And he knew what Remus was saying. He knew he wasn't better. He'd wanted so desperately to think that he was, that he could be just because he should be, that he was no longer a burden. But it wasn't fucking true. It wasn't true at all.

"Rem, I can't…" His voice broke, one pathetic keening note, and he just stopped. He stopped everything. He stared at Remus, at the desperation, the excessive dampness of his eyes, and felt it mirrored in his own face, the realization that there were some problems without solution, that there were people who were made broken, who could never be whole no matter how much everyone wanted them to be. The realization that his escape from Grimmauld Place was too late and incomplete, that he couldn't gain back what had been lost, and the realization that his very existence, his entire life would hurt those he loved, and he hated every second of it, every single breath of this life because it had only led to pain.


	24. Chapter 23

**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter Twenty-Three**

Remus could see the realization hit Sirius, the sag of his shoulders and the paling of his skin. He could see it in the way Sirius bit his lip too hard and took one endless breath, eye contact unwavering. Remus gazed at him for a brief eternity, unable to fathom the magnitude of Sirius' revelation, uncertain what else could be done that hadn't been already. His voice, all rough whispers and jagged edges, grated through the silence: "Let's get you upstairs. Lie down. You know."

Sirius nodded, finally dragging his eyes away from Remus', forcing his legs to support him. Remus caught his arm and stabilized him, helping him up the stairs. The weakness seemed to have subsided for the moment, and Sirius made it to his room, sitting on the edge of the bed. Remus hesitantly perched on the edge of Sirius' desk chair, feeling an anxiety both intense and far too general – an anxiety that would not settle on merely one issue but coloured all the rest. Silence stretched between them, slowly building a sturdy barrier as they sat in their individual thoughts. Remus finally muttered that he needed to go do something and stumbled out of the room, not waiting for Sirius to respond. He closed the door behind him, somehow already wondering if he'd see Sirius again, and that was absurd because he was clearly alive and people didn't just stop that suddenly.

In his own room, he lay across his bed on his stomach and dug under the edge of it for the book he had stashed, the book he'd been fervently searching for answers every night for weeks.

He was trying, desperately, to understand Sirius. To understand anorexia. To understand how anyone could purposely starve, and not even that, to lose control of the will to eat. The book did little to clarify, only explaining that the mind of the disordered is different than the mind of the healthy. Remus had scoffed at the obvious statement, finding it's very blatancy unnecessary. A look at Sirius would tell anyone he wasn't thinking the same way the rest of them were.

It made him wonder what Sirius thought now. What he thought now that he realized he was dying. Dying not in the slow way everyone was, or even on the accelerated path he had set himself on twenty years ago. Dying in the immediate sense of the word, in the sense that his only remaining chance would be to start to climb upwards as fast as he had fallen downwards, and even that might not be enough.

He thought back to years past, to James and Lily's lives a lifetime ago, to times when the world was open to anything and all they had to do was pick a direction and go. But even then, Sirius had seen what the rest of them hadn't – the possibility of failure. And though so many people, Remus thought, could live with the risk of letdown to search for the opportunity for greatness, Sirius was not one of them. The risk of failure was debilitating, and perhaps it was that, in the end, that would kill him.

Remus wished desperately for James and Lily and Peter back. He wished that it was not his responsibility alone to care for their friend, that it would not be his failure when Sirius died, that if Sirius died, he would not be alone. And he realized, somewhere in the back of his mind, that Sirius also wished this, every single day in Azkaban and every day afterwards, that all he had ever wanted was not to be alone. And they had all isolated him, treating him as a child, always looking for bones when they should have been looking at his eyes.

Tears verging, Remus breathed hard, trying to control himself. He leapt from the bed and paced the room, jamming his hands in his pockets, only to feel a small coin, almost lost in the depths of fabric, growing very hot. He tugged it out and stared at the message for a full minute before he bounded to the door, wrenching it open to find Sirius on the other side, holding a coin of his own.

"Harry," Sirius said breathless, breaking off as Remus nodded urgently, already starting toward the stairs. Sirius hurried after him, already drawing his wand.

Remus spun around, and Sirius almost collided with him, barely managing to halt in time. "Sirius, where do you think you're going?"

"With you! We've got to help Harry!" Sirius exclaimed.

"You're in no shape to be out there, not like this," Remus said.

"Damn it, Remus, we don't have time for this!" Sirius tried to force his way past, but Remus easily pushed him back, and Sirius wavered for a moment. Then he met Remus' eyes, fear apparent in his eyes. "Remus, it's Harry."

And Remus couldn't argue. He nodded shortly, and turned on his heel, hearing Sirius' footsteps just behind him as they rushed toward the fireplace, not daring to waste another second.

* * *

><p>They almost fell out of the fireplace as the stopped spinning, the rows of fireplaces absurdly disorienting but Remus seemed to know where he was going, and he veered to the left, rushing towards the large fountain. Sirius careened after him, their footfalls echoing in the deceptive silence. They screeched to a halt inside a lift, and Remus urgently punched the button for the ninth floor repeatedly. As the lift jangled downward, Remus turned and gave Sirius a helpless look but there was nothing to say, and they both knew it.<p>

The grilles of the lift slid open and Sirius led the way toward a plain black door at the end of the hall, wrenching it open and entered a circular room, where they found Tonks, Mad-Eye and Kingsley about to fling open a door.

"Don't shut it!" Mad-Eye ordered, and Remus lunged, just grabbing onto the doorknob before the door clicked shut. Then Kingsley pulled open the door in front of him, but Sirius reached for another, the muffled sound of screams pulling him in.

His vision narrowed to only the space of the doorway, the sight before him – two teenagers hopelessly surrounded by black cloaks and masks contorted in menacing sneers, wands pointed. Harry holding out the prophecy, about to give in as screams still reverberated through the stone benches, walls, the archway on a dais, a whispering veil catching the echoes.

He almost tumbled down the stairs, wand flashing in front of him, jets of light streaming from all around him as the members of the Order attacked. His eyes were fixed on Harry even as he shot spells at everything that moved, Harry and another boy on the ground, spells landing too close for comfort.

Sirius narrowly avoided being hit by a jet of red light, and turned his attention to the mask that had sent it, wand poised in front of him. He cast spells as quickly as he thought of them, in every opening between shields, between dodging, between casting glances toward Harry. The shouts around him, all bouncing back, coloured streams of light arching across the room and everywhere in between, he couldn't see Harry, where was he, a scream just as a spell finally hit and the mask he'd been fighting dipped out of sight into a crumpled heap of robes. He spun, ducking under green light, and saw a maskless Death Eater, wand raised at Harry. He launched himself the ten feet between them, ramming his shoulder as hard as he could into the sea of black robes and as soon as he righted himself, he was dueling with this one, his back to Harry, hoping desperately to keep him from danger, and the Death Eater raised his wand and before Sirius could react, he heard Harry yell "_Petrificus Totalus!_"

"Nice one!" He spun around, the adrenaline pounding through his veins and he grinned, then lunged forward and forced Harry's head down to avoid a pair of Stunning Spells. Breathing hard, exhilarated, he rapid-fire said "Now I want you to get out of –" and he pushed Harry's head down again to see Bellatrix running at them as Tonks lay prone across the stone seats. "Harry, take the prophecy, grab Neville and run!" he yelled, leaping toward his cousin. His eyes met hers, and he was waving his wand just as she shot a spell at him. He blocked it neatly, reflecting it back toward her, the bewildered expression just like the one she had worn so many years ago when he called her a pretentious snobby bitch at Christmas dinner and fled before she could do anything. He heard Harry behind him, finding Neville, casting spells as quickly as he himself was and he knew he would be safe, they were winning, the Death Eaters were slowly but surely dropping, and they really could do this.

Sparks flew from his wand and Bellatrix's, the fury in her eyes and he thought of all the times she had called him a worthless traitor, of all the spats and fights and dividing the family, the way she was always favored and he was hated, and he hated her all the more for it, wand vibrating with the force of the curses and he was winning, once and for all they would win this war and they would all know he was right all along and he laughed in spite of himself. He was righteously indignant and she was petty and annoyed; it fueled him and hindered her, and he taunted her with it, the laughter bubbling up in the thrill of the fight. "Come on, you can do better than that!" and his voice echoed because all of a sudden it was so quiet and fear struck his heart, where was Harry, he couldn't be dead, they were _winning_ and finally he had purpose but what if it had all been for nothing at all, if he had failed yet again? That this, like everything else, had been meaningless when all he wanted was to matter more and not so much, just to know he was right. The fear froze his breath in his chest, the realization that he had forgotten the most important thing and he couldn't catch his breath, but then he saw Harry out of the corner of his eye and he exhaled sharply before the light surrounded him.

He felt the light hit, felt the lurch as he fell toward that which he had laboriously pursued and fervently avoided, and he realized, in that eternal moment, that the space between birth and death is not a lifetime, but a knife edge the width of a wish or a doubt, an edge that sliced into his skin as he lay on that cusp, not living nor dying, but waiting and fearing and wishing for this exact moment, when the scales, for the first and only time, tipped in his favor.


	25. Chapter 24

**Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light**

**Chapter Twenty-Four**

"There's nothing you can do, Harry… nothing…He's gone."

Remus would have sworn those were the last words he had said. He was told he had helped find the others, that he had kept Harry from lunging through that veil to bring Sirius back. He was told that he had said plenty after that, but he had never heard it. Those last words spun circles in his mind, an endless loop. He'sgonehe'sgonehe'sgone, louder and louder until it reached a crescendo, until he found himself in a chair in the lobby of the Ministry of Magic breathing in hiccupping gasps while tears did not pour down his face.

He did not remember telling anyone that he was fine, that he just needed some air before he walked straight into one of the fireplaces and whispered his destination.

He walked through the dark house, looking. Behind doors, under beds, in every room and every closet until he found himself in Sirius' room. Until he looked around at a half-written letter to Harry, crumpled on the desk, the black ring where ink had spilled around the well, the tattered edges of the quill Sirius had used for all his exams through school. He looked at the unmade bed, at the Quidditch magazine on the bedside table, under a little handheld mirror Remus recognized from their school days.

He picked it up, half expecting to see Sirius in it, and failing that, to see James. He shook it once, twice, then dropped it on the bed, his legs buckling and he sank to the floor, head in his hands.

There was a numbness about it all, a detachment. This was a room, a bed, a desk, a crumpled bit of parchment. This was a smudgy mirror and a slightly water-damaged magazine and worn wood floors and a Gryffindor scarf tied to a bedpost. It was just things, physical objects occupying a space, except that these things were doing what Sirius no longer was – existing. And he kept telling himself that this was _Sirius'_ bed. It was _Sirius'_ mirror. His magazine. This was the last thing he read. This was the last thing he wrote. He would _never_ do this again. And for every _last_, _never_ or _Sirius_ was a pain so sharp he forgot how to breathe.

God, all he wanted was to stop saying it. To stop saying those words, stop reminding himself of the significance, to stop causing himself this pain. But it was important because it was true and it was real and he owed it to Sirius to feel it because he had failed him. He had failed to save him from a spell and from a disease, from anything else. Sirius had never failed any of them, not a single time. They had always looked to him, all of them, for a laugh, for a listen, or a best friend or confidante or encourager. He was there for Remus' lycanthropy, for James' girl problems and for his protection. He'd been there to guide Harry, to protect him, to avenge James' death and to donate a house. And what had any of them ever given him?

But even as he thought it, Remus knew it wasn't the whole truth. The truth was that, while he had always been there, he had never been all there. There was always something of Sirius missing, something he had lost and never found again. A fatal flaw in the most literal sense. His own hamartia.

The tiniest corner of paper protruded from under Sirius' mattress, and Remus carefully tugged at it until a picture slid forth. The four Marauders, no older than fifteen, grinned up at him, arms across each other's shoulders, and Remus swallowed hard. They had all looked so happy. And they had been. They had been, back then.

But the truth was, it wasn't lasting. No matter how much they loved each other, how hard they worked to protect each other, the outside always got in and somebody turned traitor and someone else tried to die and someone else did die and one person was left to keep the memories for all of them and to tell people what it had really been.

Remus stood up, tucking the photo into the pocket of his robes. He tidied up the room a little, taking nothing else save for a photo of Sirius and Regulus he found under Sirius' pillow. Then he made his way downstairs and packed his own things, lingering for a moment staring at the cover of his book. Realizing that he still did not understand, but now it was all moot because Sirius was dead and it didn't matter if anyone ever understood how he had suffered because in the end, he had died a hero in battle just in time to avoid dying from starving. He had been dying all along, and maybe it was better this way because no one would ever know, especially not Harry. They could think he died heroically. Remus could protect the truth.

He ended up at the Weasleys. He had nowhere else to go, and he couldn't stay either. And Molly sat him at the table and worried over him and he couldn't meet her reddened eyes. He pulled the photos from his pocket and set them on the table and he knew that these were how he would always explain. This was Sirius, as far as anyone knew. A loyal and happy friend. A protective big brother. A hero.

Molly smiled forcefully through tears, offering to make him a meal before she headed to Hogwarts to see to Ron, who was still in the Hospital Wing. Remus had forgotten all about it. He insisted he could make himself something, that he would only be here a couple days, that he didn't want to intrude. She said it was all nonsense and he would sit just there and be quiet and let someone take care of him, and with another stab, Remus wished he had said that to Sirius just one more time. Maybe it would have been the one that mattered.

She set a plate before him, warm, comforting food, and she ran a hand over his hair like he was one of her children and she said she was so sorry, and hugged him tight for a moment, her tears dripping down his collar. He nodded and forced a smile and thanked her, watching her walk to the fireplace as he picked up his fork, still staring at the photographs of a lifetime ago.

Then he took a single bite and choked it down past the mass of bitter tears in his throat, past the throbbing in his chest, and into the roiling emptiness of his stomach, before shaking his head and pushing the plate away, realizing that, too late, he finally understood Sirius Black.

**~The End~**

**Author's Note: **Thank you to all of you who stuck with this to the end, and to all of you who reviewed and gave me feedback! I'd love to hear what you thought of the ending as well, and if you have another Sirius-based story you would be interested in seeing written, I do occasionally take suggestions! Enough of you have asked about another sequel, taking place during Sirius' relapse around age 20, that I really think I am going to do it. I promise the wait won't be as long this time! Thank you all again.


	26. Chapter 26

A sequel to Secrets Are Walls That Keep Us Alone, a prequel to Still Fighting to Walk Towards the Light, is now available - it takes place when Sirius is 20 years old, during the First Wizarding War.

It is available on my profile, under Not Through the Night.

Thank you all!

~procrastin8or951


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